


Caged bird

by kuillsins (EykielAfterDark)



Category: MapleStory
Genre: BDSM, Collars, Discipline, Force Feeding, Forced Orgasm, Kidnapping, M/M, Orgasm Denial, Overstimulation, Pet Play, Porn With Plot, Punishment, Sexual Slavery, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, Vomiting, dubcon, emetophobia warning, noncon, pain play, shackles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-01-24 21:18:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1617404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EykielAfterDark/pseuds/kuillsins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A thief cannot be in a cage. </p><p>Especially not when the one who had put him there was his lover. </p><p>(Freud/Phantom, Evil!Freud AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written partially with Angel in mind, since she's been having a rough patch, and partially to indulge. Multi-chaptered because there are a lot of things that can be done with this scenario, and I want to do them all /laughs
> 
>  **super tw** for extremely dubious content, painplay, torture, sexual slavery, etc etc the filthiest bdsm you'll see in a while i think,
> 
> also i'm really not sure if i'll ever finish this, so. you are warned.

Something is wrong.

Freud is smiling.

Phantom is very certain that something is very wrong.

But Freud is smiling, and for the life of him he can’t figure out what’s wrong.

The cup in his hand is suddenly heavy, and his head spins. Thoughts of everything and nothing rush through his mind, jarring his balance, sapping the strength from his arms and legs and he finds himself slumped against the ground, in front of two familiar red boots.

The sound of porcelain shattering, mixed with a gentle laugh, walks him into unconsciousness.

Reality and dreams fade in to one another, and in the delirious haze between sleep and awakeness, Phantom dreams of a little white bird, fluttering against the bars of a golden cage.

 

* * *

 

 

A fierce throb of pain shatters the dream and Phantom comes to with a gasp.

What?

His body is so heavy, so sluggish. Like he’d just came to from a raging fever that plagued him for days. What happened? Phantom gathers some wetness from his mouth and carefully works it down his parched throat with a weak groan. The voice that rings in the silence is too loud, too hoarse, so cracked and rough that it’s foreign to even him.

He feels like shit.

Then he remembers. Freud, smiling as he hands Phantom a cup of perfectly sweetened tea, eyes intense and deepest blue. His vision blurring, his body giving way.

Phantom is in a cage, with pure golden bars, meeting together above him at a single point to form a dome. His mind finally clears enough to let his thieving instincts kick in and acute, searing fear races through every fibre of his being.

A thief cannot be in a cage.

Beyond the bars is darkness, but everything inside is perfectly illuminated.

Magic?

It doesn’t matter. His cane. Where is his cane? He flings the soft sheets away and another jolt of fear hits him like a stone.

With shivering hands, he pulls the sheets back over himself to hide his nakedness.

He grinds his teeth together, feeling heat rise to his cheeks and ears.

Whichever sick fuck did this will pay. So dearly. Phantom ignores the question of _how?_ and tries to detect his weapon, but he cannot sense the unique magic of his cane. It’s the cage, something is messing with his inner compass, he cannot tell what time it is, or what kind of magic it is, or how much power is left inside of him.

Calm down, Phantom. Focus.

He swallows again, heart racing. But he knows better. Even though he tries to feel around the magic seal, to look for a weak point so he could _shroud_ walk out of the strange cage, he cannot find a single nick to exploit, or feel the familiar rising of power inside his core to signify that he was using magic.

Between the thundering of his heartbeat between his ears, he hears the clink of metal.

His heart sinks again for the umpteenth time in this short span of time. He raises his hands and watches light glimmer off the golden shackles around his wrists, and for the first time he feels the heaviness around his ankles too, and gods, oh _gods_ , one around his neck. Frantically he runs his keen fingertips along it to detect a break in the metal, a hinge, a joint, anything, but there is nothing but the running surface of smooth metal.

For the first time in his life, Phantom feels completely and utterly vulnerable.

There’s no point being afraid. Whoever his captor is, Phantom won’t give him the benefit of seeing the fear on his face. He takes a few breaths to calm himself, fighting to school the expression on his face, and relaxes his frame to let the tension slip from his shoulders.

Might as well get to know his surroundings a little better.

He looks around. The floor is ivory, Phantom recognises the muted glimmer anywhere. The cage is perfectly round, ten paces across, dimly illuminated by soft white light that comes from nowhere, though it is pitch dark outside like as if a velvet cloth is draped over the bars. In its center is the sinfully cushy bed he is slumped on, with black sheets of delicate silk and a rich comforter beneath, lined with two pillows the same matching black.

Along the side, there’s a fine ivory table and two white velvet chairs. Phantom inspects the finely carved golden legs and he spies little motifs worked into the designs. His own insignia. Normally he would puff up at the sight but seeing it there disgusts him and he scrunches his nose in distaste.

This entire place sickens him.

 _People would pay to see me topless_ , thinks Phantom, as fury rises to the back of his throat.

He wrenches the sheets off him and gets up. Coldness bites into the soles of his feet as he walks over to the bars, inspecting them with his chin up and with all the dignity of a king. He traces the golden shafts and notes that they are imbued with a subtle magic — so he was right. He stretches his hand out the cage but doesn’t feel anything, not even the soft brush of velvet across his fingers. Extending his arm and leaning out, shoulders pressing against the bars, he watches his hand melt into the darkness as if shrouded by ink.

It is a very powerful magic.

The bars are firmly melded to the ivory, spaced barely wide enough for him to squeeze his arm through it. The only other point of weakness is up, where the bars meet. But one look and Phantom lets himself smirk, and admire the fine workmanship of bars welded together so skillfully that there is no mark where the various bars converged.

He walks silently around the cage once, but there isn’t so much as a lock or a hinge as a door. Had the golden frame been lowered into the ivory to seal him in?

And if it did, and he was going to be kept here… the strange thought brings a bitter smile to his face, but he really needs to know how he’s going to be fed.

Phantom lets out a strained laugh into the silence at the absurdity of the situation, and can’t help a warped sense of humour seizing him.

‘Hey! If it interests anyone, I’m finally awake and ready to be fucked.’

He can’t believe he actually said that, but he really doesn’t have anything left to lose. And it would really do him some good to see who was behind all this. A taunt like that will surely have them coming.

But there is only silence.

The minutes tick by, Phantom’s heart slows, and he realises that nobody is out there. Or does the magic mute his voice too?

‘This is getting boring,’ he calls again.

There is no indication that he has been heard.

Honestly! Then what could possibly have been the point to leave him as he is?

Phantom huffs and slides back under the covers. His ankles feel strange, he’s not used to the weight on them. Absentmindedly, he runs his fingers across the brackets on his wrists, using his nail to pick at the rim.

In the warmth of his own body heat, Phantom pulls the soft sheets closer. He will never admit that it’s actually kind of comfortable. He hates himself for not raging from the bed and tearing at the bars, but he _has_ inspected them and his mindless raging will do no good at all. Instead he nurses his frustration and anger and carefully tucks it away for when it can be used as a weapon. In the meanwhile, Phantom contemplates.

He should be given a medal for remaining so calm. But there’s really nothing left to do, anyway.

His last memory outside this strange place was in Freud’s room. They’d just retired from a particularly worrying meeting. The Black Wings were rising, strange puppeteers and pulling strings and all of a sudden obtaining control of the land. It had caught them all off guard — it had come in a lull in the preparations, at a time when they were least prepared: just after a successful mission when the troops were worn out and the Heroes themselves were spent. It was almost orchestrated, so perfectly in sync that it was scary. The Black Wings was a far more formidable force than they had reckoned, and overlooking it just that one time brought on the downfall of many towns around.

The emergency meeting had stretched on for an entire day — it seemed so strange to think that. He might’ve just been in Ereve an hour ago, and now he was here in this strange, disembodied cage.

Phantom had walked Freud back to his room, as he always did. And Freud had offered him tea, as he always did.

Then nothing.

And then this.

A nasty thought flickered to his mind.

Had it been the tea?

Had it been _Freud’s_ tea?

Freud had been smiling.

Surely not Freud of all people.

‘Freud?’ Phantom’s voice is strained. ‘Freud if you’re there, it isn’t funny any more.’

There’s no reply. Phantom is relieved because maybe it isn’t Freud and it’s just his imagination running circles around him. But on the other hand, he’s unnerved because he needs to know that it _isn’t_ Freud.

‘You’d make a shitty friend if you really did this to me.’

The shout is half-hearted and he almost feels guilty for saying it.

Surely there has to be another explanation.

Phantom thinks, and tosses, and turns. After gods know how long, a faint scent wafts through the place, and after a few breaths Phantom bolts upright urgently. He knows the tingle that soporific drugs induces, starting from his fingers and working its way to his shoulders.

They’re trying to put him to sleep?

He ducks under the covers, but the scent seems to get even worse, the strange flowery, herbal smell intensifying and driving him from the bed. He presses himself against the bars where the scent is weakest, uncaring of his nakedness as he presses his face to the cold metal to try and get some fresh air.

His heart throbs painfully in his chest.

But the smell merely gets richer, the sweetness permeating his senses, dulling his thoughts. One moment he is standing and the next he is slumped on the ground. He vaguely remembers a sense of urgency but it is just a faint memory on the horizon now.

His eyelids are heavy, and sometimes when he opens his eyes all he sees is black. One moment he is fighting to get off the ivory ground, and the next he is curled comfortably on his side in a tight ball on a soft surface, and a gentle hand is run through the locks of his hair.

Who’s hand? Who… Huh?

His vision blurs again but it’s a pleasant buzz he can’t fight.

‘Sleep,’ says a voice he knows from somewhere, he’s really quite sure he knows it well, too, but he really is too tired.

Phantom lets the fight leave his muscles and smiles when a gentle kiss is pressed to his forehead.

In the pleasant warmth, Phantom does not dream of the little white bird. Instead, he dreams of Freud, reliving memories of them enjoying sunsets together, drinking coffee, two Heroes in the midst of war and suffering. Handsome, empathetic, thoughtful Freud, his body entwined with Phantom’s in the still midsummer nights and his voice caressing sweet nothings against the smooth skin of his neck.

‘Oh, how I love you, Freud.’ He remembers the muted whisper well, he had been staring into two orbs of deepest sapphire, the most beautiful he had ever seen, when he first uttered these words.

‘My Phantom.’ He remembers Freud’s lips pressed to his, the aftertastes of light tea staining the kiss as Freud murmured his reply, savouring the feel of Phantom’s name on his tongue.

He can’t ever forget. ‘Gods, Freud. I really love you so.’

Freud smiled, and there was something so primal and magnificent lurking in those ocean depths, a mythical beast yet to rear its head.

But he remembered that Freud is a man who wouldn’t so much as breathe words to say how he feels, and he loved Freud for the immense emotions that he saw in the windows to his soul.

‘We will always be together,’ whispered Freud, his smile growing.

Phantom laughed and pressed their foreheads together, carding his fingers in his hair. ‘So possessive, Dragon Master?’

‘Always,’ Freud replied instead, with a slight nibble on Phantom’s upper lip. ‘Always, forever and ever. Even through the war. No matter what comes.’

Phantom admired Freud lapping at him through half closed eyes, loving how Freud never took that intense, dark gaze off him, his eyes glinting through beautiful lashes. He actually found it endearing.

‘If you say so, Freud.’

Even as he sleeps and dreams, a sudden longing takes him and leaves him empty, leaves him clueless and lonely in the black sheets in the center of his golden cage.

 

* * *

 

When Phantom comes to, he blinks a few times in confusion, not seeing the ceiling of his room on the Lumiere, or the white walls of Freud’s own.

He is in a cage. A thief cannot be in a cage. Fear bites at him before he remembers that he’d been through all this before.

Phantom sighs, calms himself, and sits up. It seems that nothing has changed at all.

Everything is still dark out, though the sickening, nauseating smell is gone. Thank transcendents.

He hears a noise outside, the scuffle of footsteps.

Immediately, he stiffens, ears pricked and eyes narrowed. There is no way to judge where they will come from, there isn’t a door or anything of the sort. He jumps when two horizontal beams start extending across a section of the bars, forming a door right before his very eyes. His mouth drops open as it grows a hinge, and then a keyhole, and sprouts a handle, which twitches and turns downwards as if someone is opening it from the outside. He tries but he still can’t see anything, or anyone.

The door opens outwards, and someone materialises out of the darkness and steps into the cage, a man in red robes with a purple headband adorning his locks of sunset hair.

It’s Freud.

Relief surges through him.

He wrenches the covers off. ‘Freud, oh thank transcendents it’s just you. Someone caught me and —’

The words die in his mouth when Freud closes the door behind him and locks it.

What is the point of that? They’re supposed to be getting out of here together. Even though Freud’s presence is comforting, he doesn’t want to spend a moment more inside this godforsaken, damned to hell cage.

But he misses Freud, and wants to indulge. The man’s scent and presence will calm his hackled nerves, and soothe the ache in his heart.

Phantom races up to Freud, reaching out his arms for an embrace, when the Dragon Master turns.

Where two eyes of calm, ocean depths used to be, there is only sickening, blood red.

Freud is smiling.

Something is wrong.

‘F… Freud?’

Phantom is very certain that something is very wrong.

But Freud is smiling even wider now, and for the life of him he can’t figure out what’s wrong.

‘Hello, Phantom.’


	2. Chapter 2

The man looks like Freud, but cannot possibly be the Freud he knows.

Phantom lifts a corner of his lips in a sneer. ‘So you put me in here, huh? You can stop pretending to look like Freud. It’s disgusting.’

The Freud looks surprised.

‘What are you talking about, love?’ The man raises a hand to touch his cheek but Phantom slaps it away with ire.

_Love?_

Only Freud used to call him that.

‘You sick bastard.’

Phantom realises that the cage door had disappeared and everything behind the man had reverted back to ordinary bars. He remembers that he’s still naked as a baby, standing in front of this stranged, red-eyed version of Freud, but he bites his discomfort back and holds his head high.

He feels his hands tighten into fists, but cannot muster the force to lay a blow on this man. The likeness is simply too uncanny. Those measured steps, the calm expression on his face, the swaying of his weight as he makes his way over to the bed, his left hand smoothing out the back of his robes before carefully sitting down.

Freud’s mannerisms. Without a doubt.

‘Rest assured, love. It’s me.’

Phantom stays rooted where he stands, disbelieving. ‘Prove it.’

‘I know you already recognise my body language. It’s written all over your face.’

‘You could’ve been possessed. Like Suu, that goddamned kid. Transcendents know if you’re just some fucked up commander inside Freud’s body.’

Freud tilts his head, smiling gently.

‘It’s me, Phantom,’ he murmurs, voice sweet like honey, it is as alluring as he has always known.

Phantom is struck with an image, that Freud’s voice is so much like a siren’s call to a drowning fisherman.

‘Come to bed.’

The breath catches in his throat as the crimson of Freud’s eyes flicker, a whirr of static and contradicting colors, and turn blue. _Blue_. The deepest, most gorgeous hues of summer skies and the color he has grown to love seeing, glazed over in passion and peeking out past soft lashes.

‘Phantom.’

And it is a lie, this cannot possibly be Freud, why would his Freud possibly bring him here, and turn his eyes red?

‘Come to bed, love,’ Freud says, and Phantom feels a tiny part of him break. He doesn’t want to admit it, but this is the Freud that has always been. He can imagine _this_ Freud, this same Freud, sitting on the king sized bed in the Lumiere, and reeling him in with his voice, as he always done.

And it is not that Phantom cannot say no, but that he can’t fight it. The shackles grow warm, and Phantom snaps his head downwards as they start to pulse with energy, a familiar energy — Freud’s magic. Freud’s signature, Dragon Master magic, wrestling with his mind to gain control of his limbs. Before he is even aware of it, Freud has shot his nerves and is guiding him carefully to the bed.

Phantom struggles, but his body won’t listen, not even as he comes up to Freud, breathing hard. Freud smiles up at him, eyes flickering back to that dangerous, nauseating red.

‘Let go of me,’ he hisses.

‘Why should I?’ Freud chuckles and raises a hand, places it on Phantom’s chest, and Phantom bites his lip helplessly as Freud gently runs his fingers down, playing across Phantom’s ribcage and admiring the rise and fall of his bones. ‘You’re finally here with me. Didn’t I always say that we’d be together till the end of time?’

Phantom holds his breath as the familiar touch ghosts across the crevasse in his ribcage and runs up across his nipples. Something cold settles at the base of his gut and it finally, belatedly sinks in — he is completely and utterly at the mercy of this man.

No, of Freud.

‘Freud, why?’ he gasps as Freud’s other hand snakes to his limp member and brushes along the underside tenderly. And sure enough, as Freud gently toys with his cock, rubs over the head and strokes the underside of his balls gently like how he loves it, he feels something dark and unwanted stir in the pit of his loins.

Freud looks up and flicks at one of his nipples absentmindedly, eyes distracted in thought. Phantom can’t help a sharp inhalation of breath. ‘Because I love you, and I want to always be with you.’

‘The others will wonder where I’ve gone,’ Phantom grits out, as Freud watches his cock grow harder with morbid fascination.

‘Indeed,’ smiles Freud. ‘But they won’t find you because I’m heading the search for you.’

Phantom’s eyes widen. That’s right. Freud is their strategist, and given the man’s wit and cunning, he can surely direct — or _mis_ direct the rest of them. Easily. His heart sinks as Freud leans forward, eyes twinkling, and plants a soft kiss over his heart.

‘Fucker,’ growls Phantom.

Freud grips his member firmly and gives it a single merciless stroke, pulling a hoarse gasp from him, as if to admonish him for his bad language.

There is a dangerous glint in his eyes.

‘We trusted you. We’d have put our lives on the line for you.’

Freud smiles easily and leans back again, dropping kisses across his heaving ribcage. ‘Exactly. You lot were always so naive. The simplest of reasons would have you eating out of my hand if I wished.’

‘You —’

‘And I will have you eating out of mine, pretty soon.’

Freud fastens his teeth around the skin and sucks hard, probing his tongue roughly against it. Phantom grinds his teeth together as Freud pulls away, an obscene thread of saliva connecting his tongue and his ribcage. The lewd display sends a shiver through Phantom, in revulsion or arousal he doesn’t know any more.

Freud hooks a finger in his collar and drags Phantom up on the bed beside him. Phantom tries to resist, but a ruthless kick to the back of his knees makes them buckle, and Freud grips a handful of Phantom’s hair and hoists him up, ignoring his yelp of pain.

Phantom growls and spits.

Freud can barely turn his face fast enough to get the saliva on his cheek rather than on the front of his face. The next thing Phantom registers is a blow to his face so harsh it brings tears to his eyes, and he is shouting and protesting as Freud pulls him to the headboard and deals another smack to his other cheek.

He yells as Freud digs his nails into the soft skin of his cheeks and wrenches his head upwards. Panting, he glares at Freud, angered and hardened and uncompromising, studies the smear of his spit on Freud’s cheek, ignores the burn across his own.

‘Be good for me, please.’ Freud grabs Phantom’s hand, and no matter how hard he tries to resist, it is child’s play to bring his hand to the bedpost, and then do the same to the other. The shackles holds in place, secured by a short length of golden chain that rattle obscenely in the silence.

Freud pulls away, and Phantom knows he is admiring him. Helpless, lying down, with a humiliating half-erection between his legs. Only then does Freud wipe away Phantom’s spit with his palm.

‘Fuck you.’ Phantom snarls, trying to wrench his legs out of Freud’s mental grasp to deal a kick to him. ‘You were with the Black Mage all along.’

‘Of course. I do agree with his rhethoric, you know. There can never be absolute light, because everything casts a shadow. Darkness will always exist — but darkness is an _absence_ , rather than a fill, and we all know how easy it is to take away rather than to give.’

Freud smiles, gripping Phantom’s cheeks hard and reaching up to plant a tender kiss to his sweaty forehead.

Phantom wrenches his head away before Freud’s lips connect, the gentle action is foul, desanctified by this man.

It had brought Phantom comfort, once, but Freud is destroying everything, now.

‘You wound me to the quick, love. Why do you not accept my kiss?’ Freud’s voice is hurt, and he can’t help opening his eyes. The undertones of sadness lacing Freud’s words shake him to his core, as they always have, and he opens his eyes in panic — but this corrupted Freud is still before him, crimson eyes mocking and a smirk on his face.

‘You don’t mean that, do you?’

Phantom lets out a snarl to drown out the sorrow in Freud’s words, the emotion he hears jars with the emotion that he sees on the man’s face, that of pity and contempt and a certain hungry longing.

‘Fuck off!’ he roars, as Freud reaches for him and ghosts his lips across his heaving chest, lapping at his nipples. ‘No! Freud! Get off me! F-Fuck!’ He doesn’t want any more of Freud, or the teasing touches of Freud’s fingertips down his flanks and dance around his hips and trace patterns across the base of his cock.

‘Now, now, Phantom.’ Freud licks his lips and easily spreads his legs, chains them down and leaves Phantom wide open and exposed. ‘Let me take care of you.’

Phantom feels his eyes widen.

_Take care…?_

‘What are you going to do,’ he says as evenly as he can, but the hoarse words betray the fear of the worst.

With Phantom defenseless, Freud could easily rape him.

Freud laughs and pats his cheek. ‘Relax. I’m not going to do anything of the sort just yet. You’d be very unhappy.’

‘Fuck if I’ll ever be _happy_ doing anything with you again.’

Phantom howls as Freud wraps his fingers, coated with Phantom’s saliva, around his member and starts a furious pace. It makes his eyes water, makes him squirm. The discomfort mounts as speedily as the pleasure does, racing through his veins like lightning, forces gasps through his gritted teeth.

‘Shit… Let go!’

His face burns. He doesn’t want to be pleasured by this man. Phantom tries to wrench his hips away but Freud shifts and sits heavily on his midriff, forcing the air from his lungs and gripping him tighter still.

He is a tight coil of pent up energy, straining against his bonds hard as the pleasure begins to blur his vision.

‘N-No! Don’t… Don’t you dare — _fuck!_ ’

Phantom almost screams as Freud digs his nail viciously into the slit. The pain shocks every single nerve, makes him throw back his head and arch his back but it doesn’t let up.

‘Don’t resist me.’

Through the haze of pleasure, Phantom registers the undertones of threat, simply oozing from every word. He realises with a cold jolt of fear that he has never heard this tone of voice before. Not from the Freud he used to know.

He must’ve relaxed at one point because Freud has shifted from his midriff. Phantom takes a heaving gasp of air, only to gasp in protest as Freud wraps something tightly around the base of his cock.

They’ve played games of orgasm denial in bed before, but this time it only brings him fear.

‘Freud, wha… what?’

He looks down at Freud, spies the dark blue silk tied around the shaft in an elegant bow, and then sees the man duck down and kiss the tip of his aching cock.

It leaks precome in response, and Freud laps it up with reverence.

‘Freud —’ Phantom is cut off by a groan as Freud dips down, sucking eagerly at the head and bringing him to the back of his throat smoothly in one slide. With his impending orgasm looming ever closer, and his breaths coming shorter and shorter, he finds it harder and harder to resist.

Freud knows where to lick and nibble, taking care of his weak points, one at his frenulum, and one along the vein that stands out on the side of his shaft. He slurps grossly at the length in his mouth, and the obscene sounds drive Phantom half insane.

He has never heard them before; Freud has always given him a clean blowjob, but now saliva is dribbling down his chin and mingling with the precome on his cock and the sight that only ever came to Phantom in his dreams, now reality between his legs, sends Phantom into a whirlwind of pleasure he has never known.

Freud has that half-drunk expression on his face and Phantom is quite certain that Freud is enjoying himself immensely.

He meets Freud’s eyes, his wide, blown out pupils meeting Freud’s lidded ones.

Freud smiles at him around his cock and Phantom _groans_ , letting his head drop back to the bed as the last of his control deserts him, awaiting his orgasm and much needed relief.

Then Freud pulls away, leaving his cock, throbbing and red and hard, twitching in the cold.

Phantom gasps in frustration and looks down as Freud wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

‘F-Freud,’ he grits out in protest when Freud gets up. He can’t bear to ask Freud for relief, but he needs it so badly that he bucks his hips weakly into the air, letting a soft groan escape his lips.

Freud smiles at him, calmly, like everything is going according to plan.

‘Be patient, love.’

‘Freud!’ Phantom shouts hoarsely at the man’s retreating figure, but it is all too soon before the gate reforms in the cage doors and Freud steps out into the inky blackness and is gone.

Phantom lets out a yell of rage and throws his head backwards, breathing roughly. He squirms as furiously as he can but there is no way he is getting out of his shackles without Freud’s help. And so he’s here, trapped in a damned cage, on display for gods know who to see, with a raging erection leaking precome all over his crotch.

He growls, determined to gather his wits. First thing is to do something about his hard-on. And he has just the thing — in fact, any memory with Freud in it will do perfectly. He imagines Freud, looking at him calmly with his gentle gaze and telling him _everything will be alright_ , and then reminds himself that it is all a lie, a big fat lie, to lure him in, so far in until he is lost in Freud, Freud, Freud, and then shattered and destroyed in this strange golden cage.

Phantom hisses and thrashes in frustration, a dull ache between his collarbones. He lets his eyes flutter shut, cradling the ball of betrayal inside him. Now the thought of Freud returning, wrapping his hands and feasting his bloodied eyes on him, sends a sour twist through him.

He opens his eyes and laughs bitterly.

How much of everything had been orchestrated by Freud?

He didn’t dare to think.

From outside, the sound of a set of familiar footsteps drifts in. It’s Freud again. He quickly shuts his eyes in defiance.

Freud is humming a tune under his breath. He remembers Freud humming this same melody as he bustled about his labs, tapping his feet to the serene music. Freud had named it too — _Dragon Dream_ , was it?

‘Were you patient, love?’

And even if he wasn’t, could he have done anything about it?

Phantom feels the anger bubble inside him again and growls low in his throat, gathering saliva to spit again — but before he can even start to, Freud has wrapped his hand around his member and begun furiously stroking again. Phantom lets out a garbled shout and finds his breath stolen, sucked from him by Freud’s lips crashing against his own.

Freud sucks and nips so roughly on his tongue and lips that he is sure he can taste blood in his mouth. He can’t protest, instantly he is wrenched to the highest point of pleasure, and is groaning heedlessly into the kiss and bucking his hips into Freud’s hand.

He moans, defeated, when Freud slows his pace and pulls away from his lips.

‘Are you hungry?’

He shifts his blurred gaze over to Freud, and realises that the man is serious. There is concern on his face.

‘Yes. I did just ask that question. You were out for a day, and slept for another half… you really should eat.’

‘I’d r-rather starve,’ gasps Phantom. Freud’s hand is still moving up and down his shaft, though all too slowly now, and Phantom is so sensitive that every gentle touch wrecks his nerves.

Freud looks disappointed. ‘Are you sure?’

Phantom turns away, breathing hard, so he won’t have to look at the expression that wrecks him so.

‘Phantom?’

He growls.

‘Hmm. I thought so.’

He hears the clink of metal utensils against porcelain and then Freud’s hand speeds up, ruthlessly squeezing and massaging his length efficiently in his grasp. Phantom cries out because he is so sensitive now, he just wants to come, but he can’t, but he wants to, but he really mustn’t, but he must —

Freud has cut off his air by pinching his nostrils. Phantom’s eyes fly open in terror as the man leans in, hand still working away at his cock, and kisses him fiercely.

No more air —

Phantom opens his mouth to gasp and Freud presses in a bite sized piece of food that has Phantom swallowing in surprise and it goes down too quickly, making him hack and cough as Freud pulls away.

‘No —’

He tries to protest, to wrench his face away but his air is cut again, he hates this, he hates this he hates this —

Another mouthful of meat goes down and he splutters, tears coming to his eyes as Freud squeezes the tip of his cock gently, coaxing more precome from him. He sees Freud lift another piece to his own mouth.

‘You’re not going to come until you eat all your food, love. Be a good boy now.’

Phantom’s eyes widen as Freud’s plan dawns on him at last. He’d known from the start that Phantom, driven by his unbending will and pride, would rather die than let Freud keep him alive, and so… Freud resorts to using his bodily needs to overpower his pride.

After all Phantom needs to come, and Phantom needs to breathe.

He bucks vainly as Freud crashes their lips together, working his jaws as fast as he can to swallow the food properly. This time it goes down smoothly, and soon his passageways are cleared for air.

Freud smiles in satisfaction, and Phantom knows there is defeat in his own eyes.

‘See? That’s not so hard now is it.’

Phantom can’t bring himself to look into the mage’s eyes as he bends down. He realises that Freud’s hand is not around his nose any longer, that the pace has slowed to a comfortable rhythm, and despite his sensitivity and the slight pain, it is more pleasurable than it has been for a long time.

He doesn’t know how long he lay there, mindlessly alternating between chewing and swallowing as he fights for breath through his nose, writhing as Freud toys with his cock and runs his fingers along the length. He just shuts his eyes to try to hold on to just a little bit of control as Freud feeds him, kiss by kiss, mouthful by mouthful, and Phantom lets himself be fed.

Be taken care of.

Phantom opens his eyes when Freud taps on his cheek. ‘Water,’ says Freud plainly, before taking a few unhurried sips and holding it in his mouth.

But Phantom parts his lips in invitation. His throat is dry, rough from the yelling and food passing down the wrong way. And he just wants to get this over with so Freud can get the hell away from him. Freud’s lips press against his and a mix of water and saliva passes between them and Phantom swallows, actually grateful. Again Freud feeds him water, his red eyes glinting dangerously and it is all Phantom can do to hold that sickening red gaze without throwing up.

‘Good boy.’ Freud purrs, satisfied, and runs a hand through his sweaty hair. Phantom lets his eyes flutter shut. Phantom prays to every god, transcendent, and spirit he knows that Freud will let him come at last. And thankfully, he feels Freud shift position to grasp him more firmly.

‘You always… knew me too well,’ Phantom gasps.

‘I take pride in that.’

Freud begins to caress his cock, pressing at all the right spots. Offhandedly, Phantom wishes for Freud’s mouth instead but he’s just thankful that hell has passed and he can finally come. Freud grips him firmly, gently, tight on the up and looser on the down, thumbing the head on every stroke, rolling his thumb over the head and pulls a moan from Phantom’s lips.

He trembles against the bed, bucking up into Freud’s hand. He misses the glint in Freud’s eyes as Freud pumps him in time to his thrusts, matching his pace and speeding up when his hips move more erratically, saying nothing as Phantom bites back his moans and throws back his head as he bucks.

He feels something shift against the base of his cock and is about to look down when Freud gives him a single fierce stroke.

And with a haggard gasp, orgasm rushes through him from head to toe, wrecking him and leaving him quivering as he thrusts upwards into Freud’s hand. His mind whites out even as Freud continues stroking him gently, sensually, through his orgasm, until he falls back in bed, utterly and completely spent.

‘That was a fun meal,’ hums Freud, bringing his fingers to his mouth and lapping at Phantom’s seed on his fingers. Phantom averts his gaze as Freud carefully cleans off every drop of semen.

It wasn’t fun at all, for Phantom.

Freud gathers the utensils and piles them back on the tray. ‘Next time you need to eat, we’ll do this again.’

Phantom snarls viciously at Freud, and Freud merely smiles in reply.

‘Aren’t you… going to… let me go?’ Phantom hisses between gasps as he tugs on his shackles. He hates being so exposed.

‘Most definitely not.’ Freud gives him a nonplussed look. ‘You might stick your fingers into your throat to throw up. And we can’t have you making a mess all over yourself, can we?’

So Freud thought about that too. How typical of him.

He snorts as Freud wipes down his heaving midriff with a damp cloth, cleaning off specks of gravy and sweat and come.

‘Is there a chance… we could skip the whole… suffocate-me-until-I-eat thing?’

‘Maybe,’ hums Freud, picking up the tray and turning. ‘If you’re good, maybe.’

Phantom turns away as Freud heads for the cage door.

‘Sleep tight, Phantom.’

He has no intention to sleep… what —

The sickening sweet smell permeates his senses again and Phantom laughs at the man with Freud’s face.

‘Once upon a time I’d fall asleep willingly in your arms, without having to be put to sleep like an animal.’

Freud tosses a casual smile over his shoulder.

‘You have to do better than that to get me to stop the soporifics, Phantom. Now excuse me. I’ll leave you to digest your food, while I go back to Ereve to plan the next stage of our search.’

‘You little —’

‘Goodnight, Phantom.’

‘Freud! Stop right there!’

Before Freud has even opened the cage door fully, darkness is licking at the edge of his vision and he feels his arms and legs go slack.

_Shit…!_

‘Sweet dreams.’


	3. Chapter 3

‘Phantom.’

The voice is sweet and mellow. Freud turns to him, the sunset framing his beautiful hair. They’re on top of a cliff, leaning against Afrien’s smooth scales, and watching the oceans glitter and sparkle like liquid gold.

‘I love you, Freud,’ he feels his mouth say, but he cannot hear the words.

Freud laughs and leans in closer, he can smell a whiff of vanilla and tea, and he swears that nothing can ever be more beautiful than the deep twilight of Freud’s eyes, vast and deep and…

Red?

‘Phantom.’

The sky is blood red, the ocean is red. Everything is red.

Sick, nauseating red.

Freud leans in, and still Phantom stares, enthralled, a strange foreign terror eating him up from the inside, as the Dragon Master rubs noses with him.

‘I love you, Freud.’

‘We will always be together,’ whispers Freud soundlessly against his lips.

He opens his mouth to accept Freud’s probing tongue —

He splutters on water and jerks awake, coughing and hacking. The golden bars meet him, blurred from the tears in his eyes, and velvety darkness lies beyond.

The cage.

Freud’s head pops into view.

‘You’re awake,’ he grins.

Freud, with his sickening nauseating red eyes.

‘Fuck you,’ hisses Phantom, swallowing hard, trying to set his throat right.

‘Now, now, Phantom. That isn’t the way to treat me, now is it.’

‘Can’t you wake me up like a decent human being?’ Phantom tries to turn away, but realises his arms and legs are chained to the bedposts again, and he gives up, simply lying there and letting Freud trace his cheeks gently.

‘Hmm. Like how?’

‘Good morning, maybe.’

Freud laughs and settles down on his side to watch Phantom. He looks so relaxed, as if they were simply lying in bed together to admire each other in the silence after making sweet, sweet love. But they are here, together, in this golden cage, enshrouded by the strange magic, and nowhere else. And Phantom is still Freud’s captive.

‘I tried. Called your name so many times. You just continued snoring, so I moved you into position and woke you up with a kiss.’

Phantom narrows his eyes. ‘And let water run into my windpipe and choke me.’

Freud grins. ‘That is only your fault.’

‘I was dreaming of better times,’ smirks Phantom, turning his head away from Freud, staring resolutely at a faraway space. ‘One when you were still my friend.’

‘And a liar. A cheat, an actor, a fraud.’

Phantom’s chest clenches.

‘The _me_ you see now is the real me. And didn’t you always want to know me better?’

Freud shifts and sprawls over his chest, resting his chin on Phantom’s ribcage. Phantom narrows his eyes again, dragging his gaze away from the intense one that seems to stare into his very core and violates a part of him he used to reserve for…

‘Now you know me, inside and out,’ Freud’s grin grows even wider.

Quite literally, thinks Phantom with a scowl.

Freud purrs and shuffles closer. The man is in a navy blue robe, and when Freud shifts he can see strokes of red calligraphy adorning the white front.

‘Blue eyes, red robe… red eyes, blue robe?’ Phantom raises an eyebrow. ‘How poetic.’

Freud rests his cheek on Phantom’s chest, smiling contentedly. ‘Mhmm. I’m surprised you of all people could pick it up. You were the most dense of the lot.’

‘Excuse you,’ scowls Phantom. ‘My wit is unrivalled.’

‘To all except mine.’ Freud tweaks one of Phantom’s nipples sharply, pulling a gasp from him. ‘I was one step ahead of you all, until, now.’ He taps Phantom’s other nipple for emphasis between words, and the blonde grits his teeth to crush even the slightest chance that he is aroused from the faint action.

With Freud lying on top of him like that, he’d feel Phantom’s arousal against his thigh, and that was the last thing he wanted.

‘Mm, yeah, whatever.’ Phantom rolls his eyes. ‘Fine. You’re the best, alright? How many times must I say that to make you let me go, hmm?’

Freud blinks. ‘Ah… you really want to go home, don’t you?’

‘Of course not. I love it here, in this comfortable velvet bed which is extremely expensive, waited upon hand and foot by my lover who does almost everything for me, half chewing my food included.’

‘I’m very glad to hear that.’ Freud smiles and there is softness in his eyes. ‘I’m glad you’re here too.’

Phantom hisses urgently, unnerved by Freud’s warmth. The last thing he wants is Freud believing that he, the Master Thief of all people, will be willing to live the rest of his life in a cage. ‘Hey. The world’s best scholar should know to detect overflowing sarcasm.’

‘And the world’s best thief should know the truth from the lies.’

Freud smiles gently up at him, eyes lidded, and Phantom realises with a strange detached finality that he cannot discern Freud’s gentle calmness from his conniving side.

And this about the man he thought he knew better than anyone.

‘Enough times to kill me from overexposure,’ Freud says in answer to his question, a sweet little smile playing about the corners of his mouth.

Phantom laughs. ‘Are you saying that I’m only free to leave after I kill you?’

Freud looks amused.

‘Till death do us part, no?’

Phantom inhales sharply as Freud gets up, laughing at his own joke, and picks the plate up. He isn’t expecting that answer. Truth be told he’s terrified to hear it.

‘I’m going to take good care of you, my love, and I will never let you go. I have worked too hard to finally get my hands on you, and I don’t intend to lose you even once.’

Phantom growls as Freud begins working at the food with fork and knife.

‘Why don’t you tell me what exactly you want to do with me?’

Freud pauses, studying Phantom stretched open before him, as if the question has thrown him off.

But Phantom knows better, and decides that Freud is merely acting.

‘Nothing at all.’ Freud’s face softens, and his smile grows tender, so tender that it makes a warm part in Phantom’s being shrivel up and go stone dead.

Freud is slowly and surely killing him.

‘Nothing?’

‘None at all.’

A stab of pain runs through him. The thought of being kept here for no reason, made to live his days aimlessly and futilely, wasting minute after precious minute of his life within these golden bars — the despair of it all must have shown on his face, because Freud is bending to press a kiss against his forehead and smooth out his furrowed brow.

But Phantom cannot possibly survive being locked away like a pet. It is why he travels by the rooftops, makes his entrances and exits by the windows, and practically lives in a flying ship. It is why he tucks feathers into his hat. It is why his best fighting skill makes his cape turn starry, aurora blue as it billows from his shoulders like wings.

Phantom is a creature of a sky — a raven, no, a crow, a _magpie_ — and he will wither away in the darkness, out of the sun, on the floor of his golden cage.

‘Is there really no chance you’ll ever let me out?’ Phantom whispers hoarsely against Freud’s lips.

‘Not a chance,’ whispers Freud in reply, the man’s words ghosting across his skin.

He watches Freud close his eyes and lets him capture his lips in a loving kiss, keeping his own lips soft as he remembers the watercolor hues of the sky, rolling trains of clouds pinning up the rich fabric of the heavens, the picture of someone spilling shards of purest crystal against the velvet of the night sky, one that is not framed by golden bars meeting together at a single point above him.

Freud kisses him hard and Phantom parts his jaws to let the soft tongue in, feeling Freud tangle their tongues together, draw it across his teeth and gums, tasting every part of him. The man nibbles on his lower lip as he pulls away, eyes lidded and a hungry shadow cast across his bloodied red pupils.

‘Come, Phantom. It’s time to eat.’

‘I won’t,’ he whispers, after a moment’s hesitation.

Freud sets the utensils down and turns his gaze on Phantom.

‘What?’

It is all anger and displeasure in his eyes, and Phantom knows what is coming.

‘I said, I’m not going to eat anything from you. I’d rather starve.’

‘You’re only making this difficult for yourself, you know.’

Phantom narrows his eyes as Freud pulls out the blue silk ribbon from his pocket, a matching color to his robes.

‘I don’t give two shits.’

‘Hmm,’ Freud hums thoughtfully.

‘Or one.’

‘Hmm.’

‘I’d rather die.’

Freud looks at him with pity in his ruby red eyes, and something cold and jarring races through him. ‘Don’t say things like that, love. You’re breaking my heart.’

He bucks when Freud tries to loop the ribbon around his shaft, but Freud merely holds him down and fastens the knot relentlessly, making him yelp. It’s tighter than before, and it’s going to send him three ways to hell before he’s half done with — which meal? dinner? lunch? breakfast? — before he’s half done with his food.

‘I couldn’t care less.’

‘Phantom,’ says Freud, disappointed, but he knows better, it isn’t _his_ Freud, it’s this strange, red-eyed Freud, just messing with him.

Freud is doing a good job with that.

But perhaps Freud doesn’t know him that well after all, or maybe he does and is using that to fuck around with Phantom even more —

Phantom so desperately needs to be free.

‘Last chance, Phantom.’

‘You can suck it.’

‘I’ll help myself then.’

He clearly didn’t think the insult through. ‘Freud, fuck, wait _no_ —’ He swears as Freud fastens his lips around his shaft and the wet, sloppy warmth soon has his breaths coming short.

Once again he will submit because he needs to breathe, and he needs to come, no matter how desperately he wants to resist. He wants to resist because this man is a monster, but it is also his Freud — the Freud he has fallen so deeply and madly in love with, and he cannot escape.

Again, it will be this same love that will reduce him to a crazed, desperate form shackled to the bed.

Time is going to pass so, so very slowly, within the bars of his golden cage, hidden from the sight of the skies.

 

* * *

 

 

It repeats.

Sleep. Wake. Eat, come, sleep, wake, e at , come , sle ep wa ke e a t c o m e —

Even if he isn’t hungry, he’s fed. Sometimes he wakes hungry, but isn’t fed. It’s the same every time, fighting to breathe and swallow and control his impending orgasms as he looks up into the face he once loved, now tainted with bloodied eyes, yet still smiling, so beautifully and gently that everything almost seems to be right.

He loses count of how many meals he’s eaten. Once he actually catches himself dreaming that Freud is coming towards him with a tray, only to jolt awake, sweaty, terrified, swallowing huge gulps of air down his unobstructed windpipe, alone.

Ten? Twelve? Thirteen?

How many days has it been?

He knows it is so easy to give in, to merely accept the food and be a good boy so Freud can jerk him off gently and sensually without having to be denied for too long. But the part of him that has always kept Phantom going through the biting periods of hunger, the biting winds of the desert, the biting words of the Heroes — that part doesn’t let him surrender so quickly.

Yet, held mercy to Freud’s sickening, blood red gaze, a plaything for the fingers and hands of an infinitely patient man, that part starts shrinking smaller, and smaller. And smaller still.

Phantom wants to give in — but he also fears that this part of him will disappear completely, one day.


	4. Chapter 4

He is roused by something gnawing in his stomach. He’s hungry. Then he realises that he’s curled up on his side, freed for the first time in a long time, and the sheets are tucked comfortably around him. Freud must have loosened him from his bonds. He holds up his hands, but there is still no ring for shackles to attach to — it is definitely some form of magic, he surmised. Who knew what the crafty old scholar had up his sleeves, hidden away from the alliance.

He stretches, flexing every part of his lithe body like a cat, shaking out the tension in his muscles, his thighs, his back, takes a minute to savour his newfound freedom and the feeling of blood rushing through him everywhere.

Finally he can work at the itch on his ass.

Scratching, he pushes himself upright with his other arm. He doesn’t feel sticky anywhere, and there’s a gentle smell like cinnamon all around. Soap? Maybe Freud had wiped away the sweat on his skin.

He shivers slightly when he imagines Freud running his hands up and down his frame while he slept, blissfully oblivious. What kind of expression would Freud wear as he _took care_ of Phantom’s motionless body, like polishing a beloved doll?

The thought sends a ghastly chill through him.

But he’s alive, and his stomach is growling. Phantom ponders. Maybe if he’s hungry now, it means it’s dinnertime. Or breakfast. It feels like an eternity ago but Phantom knew he loved tucking into a sumptuous, mouthwatering dinner after a long day’s work, or waking up to an elaborate breakfast in the morning to set the day right.

Still, he knows that by now it can’t be his body remembering the rhythm of days of old. Freud has messed him up so badly that he doesn’t even trust his stomach to tell him what time it is, whether it is breakfast, or dinner. Lunch? Tea? Maybe a snack between that?

He knows Freud wouldn’t starve him, but when was the food coming next? It isn’t pleasant being hungry, and Phantom has had his fill of days where food was hard to come by.

But… if food really comes, will Phantom let himself eat this time?

He remembers Freud with his glinting red eyes, and swears, as he always does, that this time he will not eat food from the monster who had tricked them for months.

The words sound weak and feeble even in his mind.

He sulks as he lowers himself back under the sheets. There is a soreness in his cock from being stimulated so excessively. With a sigh he flips onto his side and curls up tighter, shielding his member from the sheets with his other leg, staring at the golden bars and contemplating the darkness beyond.

He knows Freud will make him eat, even if he doesn’t want to. Phantom knows this much about this new Freud — obsessive, dangerous, violent, merciless Freud, who is a brilliant actor and a cunning strategist, one who knew everything about Phantom while Phantom knew nothing about him. This Freud wants him _alive_ , and will not let him die.

But mini Phantom is really, _really_ sore.

Freud’s footsteps echo outside, and Phantom glances over to the door that forms, waiting for Freud’s form to gather from the inky darkness.

A tray is balanced across his hands.

Oh gods, no. Not feeding time.

Phantom shirks to the headboard, eyes narrowed at the blue ribbon dangling from the pocket of Freud’s pants. ‘Please tell me there’s a way to avoid being jacked off while I eat.’

He wonders how often a man has to come to break his penis.

Freud looks pleasantly surprised by his half-demand, half-request. If Phantom didn’t know Freud’s knack for manipulating his expression and body language, he’d say Freud was surprised, so surprised like christmas had come half a year early and a gift box had simply tumbled out of the sky to land in his lap.

‘Don’t pull that face with me.’ Phantom looks away. ‘I just hate having to be pushed into corners and made to cum like… like some deranged cow. Milked out of its mind.’

‘That’s not quite how cow udders work,’ laughs Freud.

He can’t bring himself to start hating that beautiful, tinkling chuckle. Not just yet.

‘Well you get the idea. I’m not a toy that leaks come on your request.’

Freud reaches behind him and drags a chair up, setting the tray gently across his lap.

‘Hmm.’

That tone of voice. Phantom knows it anywhere. The sound of Freud contemplating, the sound Freud makes when a plot forming in his mind. No. He didn’t need that now.

Not when he just talked about being Freud’s toy.

He needs a way to appease Freud, and fast.

‘Whatever you’re thinking, stop.’ Phantom sits up properly in bed and growls. ‘Give me the food. I’ll eat.’

Freud’s gaze flickers, train of thought broken, and Phantom feels relief flood him. Thank fuck this is something that stays the same for both the good and the bad sides of this man.

‘I’ll finish every scrap of it. Every morsel. I’ll lick the plate if I have to. And I swear on my life I won’t try to choke myself on the food.’

Freud tilts his head, studying Phantom. Immediately Phantom grabs his chance and shuffles closer to Freud’s side of the bed as he pretends to look interested in the food.

It’s really too healthy for Phantom’s tastes, a grilled slab of chicken, some salad, and a cup of water. But it’s food. Even if it’s the same thing he’s been eating for the past few times.

‘You’re not.’

Phantom looks up, keeping the innocent look on his face.

Freud is smiling, but his eyes are hard.

‘You’re not actually hungry.’

‘I am!’ Phantom protests, patting his stomach. A hollow thump rings out. ‘You can hear how empty it is, see?’

Freud’s eyes glint, a predatory expression that is there one moment and gone the next, so quickly that Phantom wonders if he’d dreamed it.

‘Good. I’ll feed you then. The same way we’ve been doing it. Mouth to mouth.’ Freud spears a piece of chicken with his fork and holds it up to his face, grinning.

‘I can feed myself —’

‘No!’ Freud interrupts him, smirking. ‘I’ll feed you. You can eat while you feel my lips pressed against yours, my taste mixing with the food.’

Unbidden, the memory of their rough encounters spring to mind, of their teeth knocking and of Phantom helpless as Freud pressed up against him. Phantom’s eyes widen as lust stirs at the base of his spine.

‘And as you chew you feel my hand moving, rubbing your precome all over your hot, throbbing cock.’

Phantom’s stomach growls and he grits his teeth.

His cock is responding to Freud’s sweet, gentle voice and the dirty talk matching with the memories of what had happened before. The taste of chicken, salad, however it is done, whatever gravy, intertwined with feelings of pleasure coursing through his body.

‘Gasping into the kiss,’ Freud murmurs low in the silence, as Phantom’s breathing speeds up, his empty stomach doing flips. He waves the fork and taps the piece of chicken against his lips, leaving a trickle of gravy running down his chin. Phantom fights the urge to lick his lips. ‘Arching against the friction, silently begging for more.’

‘This was your plan all along, wasn’t it.’

‘You know how meticulous I am with my missions.’

Phantom feels his haunches rise. His cheeks flare in humiliation and he forces himself to hold Freud’s gaze even though something inside him is winding tighter, and tighter, and tighter.

‘You sick fuck.’

Freud chuckles gently, triumph in his eyes.

Phantom watches Freud daintily run his tongue along the piece of chicken before gathering it between his teeth and pulling it off the prongs. Freud leans forward to pass it to him.

A sharp jolt of arousal flares through him.

He is entranced, shifting his weight and opening his mouth, finding himself salivating, transfixed on that piece of meat, when Freud pulls back and snaps the meat up. Freud’s lips close around the meat he is holding in his mouth and he gives Phantom a content smile.

The fucker is toying with him. Phantom snarls in frustration.

Now their lips will have to meet.

Freud beckons him with a wave of his finger. He knows what will come. His stomach growls, but he ignores it. And ignores Freud, staying still, breathing harder as Freud’s expression changes to one of contemplation.

Swiftly, Freud hooks a finger in his collar and wrenches him forward. He expects the mage to crash their lips together, but he doesn’t. Instead he holds Phantom close, an inch away, breathing the smell of grilled chicken over him, red eyes narrowed just slightly to hint at something bad if Phantom doesn’t obey.

Freud only needs to move his hand to the silk ribbon in his pocket to make Phantom groan in frustration, and then open his mouth to let him in.

Gods, he hates this so.

He breathes heavily as Freud becomes content again, presses them together. Freud nibbles on his lips, expertly running his tongue over them even with the chicken in his mouth, and Phantom gives himself in. Sucking gently on Freud’s lips, he lets the gentle waves of arousal traverse from his lips down to the pit of his stomach and radiate a warmth throughout his core.

Freud groans, for the first time reaching up to card his fingers through Phantom’s hair. He becomes fiercer, more passionate, arching his entire body against Phantom’s as he passes the meat over with a slip of his tongue, and Phantom receives it with a low keen in his throat, unable to bite it back as his cock throbs between his legs.

Freud pulls away just slightly, purring, ‘Chew, love.’

His chest tightens at the gentle words and Freud presses against him, brushing fingers across his cock teasingly when he doesn’t work his jaws. ‘Phantom,’ he warns, but it is so jovial it sounds like a gasp of pleasure rather than a threat.

But Phantom merely closes his eyes, berates himself, and then begins to chew. Freud immediately slips his arms around his neck, pressing their torsos together. Phantom shivers as his over-sensitive nipples, picked raw and pulled every which way by Freud’s incessant teasing, grow hard against the fabric of Freud’s robes. He works his jaws, his mind blurring slightly as Freud works too, eyes closed, suckling on his lips, oblivious to the fact that Phantom is eating.

When Freud brushes a hand gently across the collarbones, runs his fingers upwards, presses slightly on his adam’s apple, he swallows slowly with a gasp, feeling the pressure shift as his throat bobs.

The mere act of swallowing, with Freud’s fingers pressed against his throat as if to feel the food go down, makes Phantom’s cock swell a little more.

‘Good job love,’ murmurs Freud against his lips, calmly ignoring Phantom’s haggard breaths against him.

Freud runs the hand on his throat across his shoulders, down to his trembling hands, and brings one of them to his throbbing member, wrapping his fingers around it gently.

‘Fix your erection, love. You’ve earned a nice, good orgasm,’ smiles Freud, coaxing Phantom’s hand to move, guiding it gently and squeezing his fingers, making him gasp. ‘Keep yourself busy while I feed you.’

Freud pulls his hand away but Phantom finds his own hand moving, stroking up and down and running his thumb around the head, picking up the precome to lubricate his movement. Fuck, he hates this, but he’s too far gone to stop. He inhales sharply as Freud brings the next piece of meat to his mouth, meeting the eyes of blood with his own, which he is sure are glazed in arousal, and doesn’t resist as Freud arches up against him and starts kissing him again.

He is shocked to realise that the soft groans are coming from himself. His rhythm has shifted unconsciously, squeezing firmly when Freud sucks on his lips, relaxing when Freud pulls away, rakes his fingernail gently across the slit when Freud bites and tugs. Phantom accepts the food, chewing slowly, but this time Freud pulls away faster, turning to fork another piece into his mouth.

Phantom almost swallows, but it only takes a flicker of Freud’s gaze before he stills, and he waits for Freud to touch his throat before he works the meat down.

Another piece, and another. The sound of his chewing is punctuated by Freud’s groans, his own, and the sound of his hand working up and down his erection. Freud keeps to his words, only giving him gentle kisses to goad him on, only thumbing his nipples when he arches his chest out in silent invitation, never touching his cock.

But before he can even orgasm, Freud pulls away, and reaches for the cup of water. Phantom notices that the plate is empty, the small patty of chicken and vegetables cleaned off — he didn’t expect it to be enough, but it is, somehow.

‘Water,’ says Freud, before he tips the cup and holds the drink in his mouth.

It is lukewarm and tastes of chicken and gravy. Phantom waits for Freud’s hand, and drinks, one mouthful at a time, finding his throat going drier as his breaths get rougher, and his hand moves more quickly, pulling at his cock, trying to draw orgasm from his depths.

The water is drunk, the food is eaten, and Freud looks appeased.

Fuck… The expression on Freud’s face, of pure and unadulterated satisfaction, finally makes him realise what he has given himself in to. He has let himself eat, fed the way Freud wants him, played like a toy, made to grow hard with every meal he eats.

He tears his gaze away from Freud, hangs his head, closes his eyes, and then begins to rapidly stroke himself. It is not the first time he has masturbated in front of Freud, they have gotten off together before, sometimes each doing the other — but this time the act is carnal, loveless, and shameful, and Phantom wants to quickly come and then make Freud go.

His soft gasps and sharp breaths fill the air, mingling with the sound of friction. He squeezes tighter, almost thrusting his hips into his own hand, hating to love the pleasure that surges through him, sending him higher and higher, so high until he can take no more. With a sharp gasp, his body tenses.

Freud snakes a hand under his chin and makes sure Phantom can see him clearly.

Blue —

His own eyes widen as the sight of Freud, the Freud he has known better than himself, smiling gently in front of him, and a mix of passion and lust and _love — is it love? Is it still love?_ — hits him hard. But his climax is not to this Freud, for it is just a flicker, and now he is shooting his load with that strange concoction of emotion, to the image of red-eyed Freud, in the haze of his orgasm he cannot react fast enough to quell the affection that rises, and it is love that makes him topple over the edge to fall into the arms of red-eyed Freud.

His hand stills.

Freud lifts his own hand, which is slathered in white fluid; he must’ve covered the head of his cock at the last moment to catch Phantom’s load. ‘Dessert?’ Freud offers him his hand.

He turns away, nose wrinkling in distaste.

‘No? Well, suit yourself.’

Freud gently wipes Phantom down with a damp towel in his other hand, lapping away at Phantom’s come. Something deep inside Phantom has become unseated, and it leaves him trembling even as he kneels in front of Freud on the mattress, letting the man clean the sweat away without resistance.

‘Can I trust you not to make yourself throw up, love? Or do I have to chain you up again?’

He meets Freud’s gaze after a moment’s hesitation. He isn’t sure what his answer is, but it must’ve shown in his eyes because Freud lets out a sigh, like speaking to a grouchy child.

‘I’m not going to take _no_ for an answer, love. I’m going to ask you again, and you’re going to say yes —’

‘No! Once you’re gone I’ll do it.’ says Phantom immediately, the spark of rebellion back, where was it just minutes ago when he was jerking himself off to eating?

Freud’s eyes turn angry. There is pain, sharp burning acute pain in his cock and then in his cheek as Freud deals him a savage slap that topples him onto his side, writhing and gasping but Freud has captured his hands above him and he can’t break free from the searing pain.

‘Freud —’

‘I intend to take care of you, and I will.’ Freud says gently, but he squeezes Phantom’s balls so fiercely that Phantom cries out. ‘If you want to throw your food up, I will be helping you do it.’

Freud loosens the hold on his cock and Phantom roars at him, fear and shame and humiliation driving him to be reckless. ‘You’d hurt me? Go on then! Do your fucking worst!’

Those red eyes flare.

There is time for one last spike of fear from the realisation that Freud is really going to do it, going to make him hurl, before the world spins.

He finds himself bent over Freud’s left leg, with Freud’s right leg wrapped over on the back of his thighs so he can’t squirm away. His hands are cuffed behind him and Freud has one hand gripping his jaws, forcing it open while the other quickly and efficiently finds its way into his mouth.

‘Carrot and stick, Phantom.’

‘Hreud!’ Phantom panics as Freud’s fingers jab fiercely against his tongue, eyes growing watery as he tries to choke back his gag reflex. ‘Wait! Please!’

‘I gave you an orgasm, gave you food, and you didn’t want it.’

‘Hreu — urk!’

Phantom chokes, bucking furiously, the golden bars in his vision blurring and his heart pounding in his ears. He tries to bite down but Freud merely wrenches his jaws further apart, pushes his tongue out of the way, and then slides his fingers into the warmth of Phantom’s throat.

The first time, he manages to time his swallow so he takes them into his throat. But then they curl inside, and Phantom feels his gut rumble.

‘I will always feed you, love.’

His stomach twists and his entire body convulses, Freud’s fingers drawing out from his coughing mouth and then thrusting back inside again.

‘But if you don’t want to keep it down, I really can’t have you exerting yourself, can I? What kind of person would I be?’

Bile rises to the back of his throat, Phantom squirms harder, knowing that the next thrust will do the job.

‘Now, open up and let’s make this quick.’

The mush and food splatters on the ground before him and hot tears stream down his face. Freud, oblivious to the mess on his robes and hand, thrusts viciously in and out, rubbing at the uvula at the back of his throat, and another bout of undigested food comes up. Freud jerks his leg against his stomach and the ruthless force makes more food come up involuntarily, coming up through his nose.

Phantom can hear himself keening and sobbing incoherently, the discomfort and the pain like nothing he has ever experienced, his tired body shaking as Freud pulls more and more food from his insides, until he is dry heaving and dribbling thick saliva and nothing more.

His stomach empty, Freud slowly pulls away his soiled hand.

Phantom coughs, choking, clearing his windpipe of the sour food scraps. His throat is hoarse, rough, sore.

With the damp cloth, Freud carefully wipes away the vomit on Phantom’s chin, cleaning his upper lip, wiping the tears from his eyes with the other side. Then with a strength surely imbued by magic, he lifts Phantom’s shaking but clean body onto the bed.

Phantom’s breathing is haggard and closes his eyes. He curls up, bringing his unbound arms to his chest, barely biting back whimpers as his captor tucks the sheets around him gently. He doesn’t want to see Freud in front of him with tears in his beautiful blue eyes.

He listens to the sound of Freud wiping up the vomit, gathering everything back onto the tray. The stench still remains, permeating his senses.

‘Forgive me, Phantom,’ he hears Freud whisper.

And when Freud presses a kiss to his sweaty forehead, the flowery smell of the sleeping drugs fill the air.

Phantom doesn’t fight it.

Sleep is fitful, but dreamless, and there is no sign of Freud, or his golden cage.

At least in the darkness, he is free, if only just for a little while.


	5. Chapter 5

Consciousness pricks dully past the veil of Phantom’s sleep. It takes a while to realise there are fingers snaked around his chin, and he is sitting up, and he is leaning against something. His vision is still blurry, his mind a haze, but even though all that, he can make out a person in front of him, with hair like an amber sunset, and eyes of the softest shade of azure he has ever seen.

_Freud…_

He wants to call out, but he’s too sleepy, too tired to move, and the most of what he can manage is a weak flicker of his eyelids. But even so he is sure Freud sees, because the man is breaking into an even wider, even kinder smile, and his gentle humming pauses for a while as he leans forward to plant a kiss on the tip of his nose.

‘My Phantom,’ he purrs, there is so much happiness and joy leaking from his voice, filling up a gaping hole in his chest, healing a wound that has somehow appeared there, Phantom can’t seem to remember when it was made, but he knows it was recent. But what is it?

Phantom drinks the sound of Freud’s voice eagerly, letting it smooth over the shards of something he didn’t know had been broken.

Picking up his humming again, Freud tilts his head another direction. Phantom feels something hard probe against his gums, scrape across his teeth, ticklish strands running along the side of his tongue.

The sensation is vaguely familiar. He watches Freud dumbly, mind dulled, barely moving, his body unresponsive as Freud’s face screws up in concentration and his tongue peeks cutely out between his lips.

‘Almost done…’

He feels his mouth being widened further by gentle fingers fit between his jaws. Freud angles his hand and he feels the hard thing inside his mouth start moving again, rubbing against the sides of his teeth. It is long and narrow but _furry?_ on the top. What is it?

‘There. All done. It wouldn’t do to have you sleeping with all that vomit in your mouth, would it, love?’

Vomit? Why would he have vomit in his mouth? Had he thrown up? Did he eat something bad? But his stomach is empty, and growling again. He’s hungry, and something strange is happening to the lower half of his body, a pleasant buzz building as Freud runs his fingertips between his lips and gums, wiping repeatedly at the soft flesh there.

‘You know, I always loved when you took care of me… it was very kind of you, love. Bringing me tea and food as I worked late into the night. Now I can finally repay the favour — ah?’

Freud stops murmuring and looks down, and a smile grows across his face.

Phantom feels something touch the head of his cock. A part of him wants more friction, another part of him screams in protest, but Phantom can’t discern why. Why would anyone hate Freud? He can’t even begin to think, sleep is on the horizon, and he wants to yield so badly.

‘Are you hungry, love? You were naughty earlier, so you can’t eat just yet. Not until your next meal. I did ask you so nicely to be good, love. Pity you had to be so stubborn.’

Darkness begins to tinge the edges of his vision once more. He’s sleepy… But it’s alright. Freud’s here, and that’s how he knows it’s safe to let his mind rest.

He feels Freud pull out his tongue, inspecting the surface for something, before carefully rearranging it inside his mouth.

‘There. All nice and clean.’ Freud turns away and picks up a damp towel, carefully wiping it across his mouth.

It _is_ good to be nice and clean. This much Phantom can agree with in his sleepy drunkenness.

The fingers Freud card through his hair prove too calming for him to bear, and with a quiet groan under his breath, he gives up the fight to stay awake and lets his eyelids flutter shut.

He feels his body lowered down onto the soft sheets. Warmth wraps around him, the scent of cinnamon and milk and a scent sweet like tea —he adores this scent, _Freud’s_ scent, but a part of him, a tiny little part, hates it.

Why? Phantom is perplexed at all these strange new feelings. Is something wrong with his nose? The scent gets stronger, mingling again with the smell of flowers, herbs and Phantom’s muscles twitch involuntarily in a fight triggered by that strange, out-of-place part of him.

He wants to make that part go away.

‘That’s it, love. Go to sleep.’

And it is his Freud asking, so how can he say no?

He is pressed up against rich velvet robes, the feel of them running across his hands and nipples he knows all too well, and he feels the rough fabric of jeans pressed up against his crotch, but he is too tired to move, even though he would so love to rut his cock all over it. But he just arches forward, as best as he can, burrowing into the heady warmth.

It is Freud in all his five senses — the taste of Freud in the passionate kiss that has always threatened to overwhelm him so, the sound of Freud humming his favourite melody, the feel of Freud’s fingers flitting across his thighs and toying with his erection, the scent of Freud and the sight of Freud lazing in a field of the grasses and herbs and wildflowers he loves so dearly, matching sapphire eyes to the wide canvases of heaven.

Goodnight, Freud, he says soundlessly against the tenderness that cannot be anything but Freud’s lips. He knows his mouth is moving, but no sound comes out, or maybe it is a moan of arousal as someone — Freud? — starts to slowly, idly massage his length.

His eyes flicker once more, and he sees red, but it cannot be anything other than Freud’s regal Dragon Master robes.

He feels so good, it threatens to rise and crest over him like a dizzying tidal wave. The reality that Phantom remembers had never once been so sweet… surely this is a dream, he thinks, but really, doesn’t know what is and isn’t any more.

 

* * *

 

 

Phantom wakes up in Freud’s lap.

‘Good morning,’ smiles Freud down at him.

‘Good morning,’ says Phantom in reply, his voice slurred and raspy. ‘Gods, I feel like shit…’

Freud reaches up to brush away a stray lock of hair from Phantom’s face, his expression one of worried concern. ‘Are you alright?’

Phantom almost says _Yeah, I just hate waking up, mornings are the bane of my existence,_ but then he catches sight of the golden bars behind Freud, reaching up to a point above him, and then remembers.

The hand that Freud had used to trigger his vomiting is now resting gently on his forehead. It is Freud, _this_ Freud, with those sickening red eyes, and Phantom would turn away if not for the other hand brushing casually against his crotch in silent warning.

‘I will be,’ Phantom says, as casually as he can, keeping his expression carefully schooled lest Freud detect the faintest of twitches of his brow under his palm. ‘Thank you.’

‘That’s polite of you.’ Freud plays along. They are both actors now, though Phantom is barely managing to stay in character.

‘Of course!’ Phantom responds with a smirk, ‘How can a Master Thief win the hearts of the masses without impeccable manners?’

Freud laughs. It is just so strange to see the kind, light-hearted smile when just above it shine two pupils of ruby red. Even stranger when the gaze Freud fixes him is cold, while every other part of his face radiates warmth so rich Phantom can almost feel it from where he lies.

‘I swear, the last time we talked, you’d asked me to… _fuck off_.’ Freud says the words like he is confused, like it is the first time he has ever heard that insult.

Phantom feels his throat go dry, even though Freud is gentle when he adjusts Phantom’s head and shoulders to rest more firmly on his lap. What is Freud going to do to him? He can’t see the rage where it usually is, but this Freud is a mask, such a terrifying game of pretend that Phantom is always left hanging, scrabbling for the slightest hints in his body language to try and stay ahead —

‘Are you hungry?’

Surprised by the sudden change of topic, Phantom forgets to reply and can only manage a weak ‘Huh?’

‘Are you hungry, love?’ Freud’s eyes soften, his voice going more tender. But is Freud pretending, he can’t tell, he has come to hate the mage’s expression of utter calmness that he once found admirable.

‘I…’ Phantom lets the word trail off his lips as Freud runs his hand from his forehead, down to his cheek, cradling what Phantom knows to be a slight bruise from the last time Freud had hit him, he can feel the faint throb to signify that his body is finally catching up to the blow.

‘Hmm?’

Phantom’s stomach growls in the silence that has settled over them, but Freud pretends not to notice.

And Phantom is smart enough to have figured out what Freud wants as an answer to that question.

He can’t stop the image of Freud, his kiss raging and passionate, his tongue slathered in gravy and pressing a lump of food against his own, nor quell the twitch in his cock.

‘I’m waiting for your reply, love. What happened to impeccable manners?’

Phantom inhales deeply to try and drown his anger and self-loathing, as Freud presses his knuckles against his throat, reminding him of their latest scuffle and the resulting event that had occurred.

‘I apologise for keeping the gentleman waiting,’ smiles Phantom tightly, and Freud’s eyes glint. ‘I do feel peckish at the moment.’

It is just a masquerade, a ballad of words, a waltz in a minefield, and Freud, with all his wit and knowledge, is a far better dancer than he.

‘Oh, do you?’ Freud looks so genuinely surprised that for a moment Phantom wonders if the man is daft and has forgotten their game of eat-and-get-aroused.

‘Yes, Freud.’

‘How can that do? Come, I have prepared some food for the both of us.’ Freud clicks his tongue and taps on Phantom’s forehead, requesting his lap to be freed.

Phantom sits up slowly, eyes darting to see the food. But there is no tray on the bed or on the pillows. Then he sees the dishes on the table.

What is Freud playing at?

‘Come, come.’

Freud hops spryly off the bed and is at the table, pulling out one of the chairs. Phantom watches Freud drape himself over the chair, leaning back in a leisurely yet somehow still regal slouch, slanting the chair so he is at an angle to the table, facing the bed.

He rests his elbow on the table and props his chin on the back of his hand, watching Phantom intently.

Phantom carefully slides off the bed, ignoring the sure signs of arousal in his loins. He’s about to reach for the other chair when Freud hooks his foot around the leg of the chair and drags it closer to him with a clutter.

Does Freud want him to sit closer? He narrows his eyes, suspicious, but follows the chair.

Freud props his legs up on the other chair, crossing them.

What?

‘Please sit,’ purrs Freud.

Phantom’s stomach twists so hard that all his nerves are instantly tightly strung, and he can’t help his fists clenching by his sides.

‘You fucking bastard,’ he whispers, so enraged that his throat has gone dry and he can’t get a single sound out.

‘Do you not want these pancakes?’ Freud blinks, as if he doesn’t understand the source of Phantom’s rage. ‘I made them myself, the way you liked them. I even added chocolate chips —’

‘Legs off the chair, it’s not polite,’ says Phantom acidly.

‘But nobody is using it.’ Freud says, still with that devastating calm voice and Phantom wants to lunge at him, he is so angry and frustrated.

Phantom belatedly realises that there is only one plate on the table, and one set of utensils, but pancakes for two, piled high on Freud’s plate.

There is a fork, beside it a knife, and beside that, a riding crop.

Phantom growls, the hair on the back of his nape prickling.

‘What, this?’ Freud reaches for the fork and knife, pretending the crop isn’t there.

Phantom snarls, ‘I’m not going to ea —’

‘ _Please_ , Phantom,’ Freud’s voice is broken, defeated, and it stops Phantom in the middle of his sentence.

Blue eyes, wide and beseeching, almost betrayed stare back at him.

And Phantom can’t take any more.

‘I’m not going to fall for that again!’ Phantom roars, turning on his heel partially to show Freud he doesn’t care and partially so he won’t need to meet Freud’s heart-wrenching gaze.

‘Phantom —’

‘Fuck you and your mind games, just fuck you!’ He stalks over to the other side of the cage, prowling there, teeth bared, anger rushing through his veins. ‘Using your cheap tricks to get me to listen to you — _fuck!_ And you think you have a right to keep me here, a toy for your own whims and fancies?’

There is only silence. Phantom grows braver with every word, and spits it out with fury, ‘Fuck you. Just kill me. I’m sick of it, so damn sick of it —’

‘Why don’t you kill _me_ , then?’

Phantom turns and realises that Freud is a pace away, crowding him towards the bars. He takes a step backwards, not wanting to be close to him, but Freud takes advantage of the distance and steps closer still.

‘Till death do us part, no? This cage is all my magic. Just kill me and everything will break, the shackles will fall off, and you will be free.’

Cold metal bars press up against his back and Phantom is about to instinctively glance over his shoulder when Freud lifts the riding crop, suddenly in his hand, and gently guides his head to face front once more.

Phantom realises that his heart is pounding.

Freud, empty handed, is a manipulator.

Freud, armed with what could potentially be a weapon, with bloodied eyes gleaming with sheer, barely-contained anger, is something Phantom finds himself afraid of.

The crop shifts to tap against Phantom’s throat.

‘Well, Phantom?’ Freud’s eyes narrow further. His voice is soft, low, … dangerous.

His breaths are coming ragged, his chest heaving as the crop slides downward to circle his midriff, running down the crevasses between his muscles and resting at the top of his crotch just above his cock.

His member, completely flaccid, betrays his fear.

‘I don’t care that you hate it,’ says Freud gently, like talking to a small child, ‘It would be better, and a lot more pleasant for both of us, if you didn’t. But it really doesn’t matter to me.’

The crop taps sharply against his member and Phantom can’t help tensing at the slight but present sting, eyes briefly flickering shut.

‘You know why? Because I’m not going to let you die.’

Freud lunges for him, pressing him against the bars and one hand digging into his cheeks. The mage is shorter but height doesn’t make a difference as Phantom is driven up on tiptoe, Freud’s inhuman strength threatening to sprain his neck. Vainly he brings his hands to Freud’s, trying to dislodge the fingers, but they might as well be made of iron, he can’t make them budge at all.

‘I could force feed you and make you throw up, over and over again.’

Phantom groans as Freud’s hand tightens around his face.

‘I could beat you until you are forced to sleep standing because the only thing that doesn’t hurt are the soles of your feet.’

The crop runs down to the tip of his member, flicking it idly.

‘I could take you here and now, fuck you against these golden bars, until you beg me to stop.’

Freud drops him suddenly and he staggers against the cage, barely managing to keep his footing, shaken and gasping for breath. He swallows, throat dry from terror, his fingers shaking even though they are clasped around the bars behind him.

‘Yet,’ Freud’s voice is gentle now, all hint of emotion gone, and now it is stone dead, ‘All I ask is that you be good.’

Phantom closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath of air.

‘Will you be good, or not, love?’

It’s really… not like he has a choice…

‘What do you want me to do?’ he whispers.

‘Since you don’t want to sit, you can kneel.’

Freud’s gaze is unwavering.

After another shaky inhalation, Phantom unclamps his fingers from around the bars. They are cold and they don’t feel like his fingers any more. He shifts his weight and lowers himself to the floor, looking at anything except those midnight blue robes. The cold ivory bites into his knees as he sits on his calves, resting his fists on his thighs.

‘Spread your legs. I want to see your cock.’

The clinical order makes Phantom shiver. Freud steps forward when he hesitates, the crop coming into his vision. The leather triangle at its tip hovers threateningly close and Phantom hurriedly opens his legs into a V, hands awkwardly by his side.

Seemingly satisfied for now, Freud doesn’t advance any more.

‘Hands on the floor.’

Phantom clenches his jaws but complies, carefully setting his hands down and resting on his palms.

He remembers how he and his Freud had engaged in pet play, once, at his urging, and Freud had protested so hard it was like begging for _pain_ to stop even though Phantom was the one willingly slipping a leather collar around his own neck in fun.

Now this Freud is tapping on the back of his head, and saying, ‘Heel.’

He crawls forward slowly, mindful of the crop as it touches his arms or legs when his position shifts too much. His face and ears are burning, his jaw hurting from how hard he is clenching. He keeps his head lowered, listening to Freud’s footsteps and the sound of his bare skin scuffling against the ivory as they maneuver around the bed.

Finally, Freud retakes his seat, a king on a velvet throne, and spreads his legs. He has that glint in his eyes as he looks down at Phantom nonchalantly. Phantom shivers, knowing that Freud is drinking in the sight of Phantom, animal-like and with a shameful flush across his cheeks in front of his boots.

When Phantom hesitates, unsure of what to do next, Freud gestures to the space between his legs with the crop.

He works down the knot in his throat and inches forward, fidgeting and shifting position under the taps of the crop until Freud is satisfied.

Something tells Phantom that the next time he is kneeling between Freud’s legs, it will be for a completely different purpose.

‘Good,’ says Freud resolutely. Phantom almost flinches from the sudden cheerful exclamation. ‘I didn’t have to resort to punishment this time around. But you still have to learn your lesson.’

From his point of view, Phantom only sees Freud reaching over the top of the table. He hears the clink of utensils before the mage turns back to him, a triangle of pancake in his hand. Freud’s words about eating out of his hand, uttered in what feels like so long ago, come to mind.

‘Go ahead, love.’

He knows what Freud wants.

Freud is holding it too close to himself, so Phantom leans forward and is almost nuzzling into Freud’s palm, picking up the food with his lips.

‘Good. Chew, love.’

Phantom does. Freud brushes his hand tenderly across his lips, smelling of butter and maple syrup, and though he is still wary and to be honest terrified, the food he’s eating is so much more appetising than the chicken he is used to, and he is done chewing in record time despite himself.

Freud, with a gentle chuckle, runs his hand back down to Phantom’s throat, and then he swallows, feeling the fingertips shift against his muscles.

His stomach lets out a final growl as food finally comes, and then the arousal starts to beat through his veins.

Freud feeds him the soft pancakes, with blueberries and strawberries and whipped cream, and the taste is so good, overwhelming and reminding him of times when Freud would surprise him with breakfast in bed. Phantom eats, quietly, like a good dog, tamely out of Freud’s palm.

He is about to pick one of his hands off the ground to start stroking himself when Freud offers him a finger with a dollop of cream perched on the tip.

There is a brief, internal struggle inside him. Freud, this perverse, cruel, clinical Freud, might want him to suck it in pantomime of a blowjob. His member throbs at the thought. But Phantom really cannot bring himself to do it. He almost grimaces at the finger, but when Freud does not say anything more, he quickly cleans most of the cream off with a single lick and draws away as fast as he can.

Freud laughs.

Phantom has never been more relieved.

‘I thought you liked whipped cream.’

‘I do,’ he murmurs, because Freud likes his impeccable manners.

‘I thought so.’ Freud chuckles, and then tilts his head up with his sticky finger. Their gazes meet, and the tenderness in them makes Phantom want to scream, and cry out, because this is the face he has loved for so long, far too long, and it pains him that it is an act, easily repeatable to get what he wants. ‘Do you want a kiss?’

‘I do,’ he says again, because it is Freud and he cannot say no.

Freud hooks that finger into his collar and guides him up, raising him on his knees and lets Phantom rest his hands on the seat of the chair. He leans down and captures Phantom’s lips, running his tongue gently across Phantom’s teeth and gums and wrapping his lips around Phantom’s, and Phantom gives himself in, letting Freud have his way with him.

He knows better than to move his hands, Freud won’t like that.

He gasps and pulls away involuntarily as Freud takes his weeping cock gently and begins to stroke it. ‘Kiss me, love,’ mutters Freud, carding his fingers into his hair and pushing him closer once more. Phantom groans, the taste of whipped cream becoming sweeter still as Freud nips at his tongue.

Freud's deft fingers play him and harden his member expertly, the perfect grip and friction bringing him swiftly and efficiently to the plane of pleasure that Freud has gotten him so well acquainted with so far. He squirms, resisting the urge to thrust into Freud's hand, even as Freud begins to work his entire hand up and down, squeezing and rubbing his fingertips around the swelling head, smearing precome and warm syrup all over his shaft.

Under Freud’s intense gaze, Phantom feels his control gradually get pumped out of him, feels his thoughts gradually blur as he meets Freud’s eyes, lidded and glinting crimson red. Freud’s other hand ghosts across his collarbones, running down his heaving chest, and then settle across his nipples. Phantom glances downwards as Freud begins to flick at one, teasing the nub and rolling it under the tip of one outstretched finger.

The hand around his cock tightens, and Phantom can’t help a moan falling from his mouth, or his hips from thrusting firmly into Freud’s fist, craving more friction. Freud’s eyes soften, his hand stills, but he doesn’t say anything and merely watches as Phantom keens in frustration at the slowing pace before thrusting mindlessly into Freud’s fingers. The tightness remains, thank fuck, and Phantom lets his eyes flutter shut, blocking out Freud’s gentle smile for better memories.

Memories of Freud, gasping his name into the night, memories of passion and lust and everything between, tightness as he thrusts into Freud’s hand or into Freud’s mouth or into Freud’s ass. Warmth, where he is surrounded by Freud’s fluttering muscles, or as Freud is wrapped around him like a vine, or in his heart where he is filled to overflowing with love.

Phantom clenches his eyes shut even tighter, responding when Freud presses their lips together, he opens his mouth to let Freud in and let a soft groan into the kiss, and then the sensations mount to something so completely unbearable and he welcomes the surge of orgasm.

Freud smiles at him, his sunset locks splayed across white sheets, his eyes blown out and soft from passionate lovemaking.

Phantom remembers, a split second just after he spills his load over Freud’s hand, that Freud’s eyes used to be blue, not red.

Freud strokes him through his orgasm, carefully squeezing every single drop of come out his throbbing cock, and everything is guilty pleasure as he is milked until he has nothing left to give. Phantom feels the tension and strength leave his body and it is all he can do to support himself on the chair.

But Freud doesn’t stop moving his hand. Phantom’s eyes open when the first bout of discomfort hits, he is oversensitive now, but Freud’s grip remains just as strong and just as ruthless.

Freud is smiling.

‘No, no don’t —’

He groans shakily, grimacing, and leans backwards to pull his sore, aching member from Freud’s hand. But Freud catches him with a thumb hooked over his lower jaw and his fingers wrapped around his chin, and drags him even closer, leaving him no choice but to stumble forward and push his cock more firmly into Freud’s grip, trembling as he leans into the man’s shoulder.

‘I did tell you that you had to learn your lesson,’ murmurs Freud into his ear. Phantom groans weakly around Freud’s thumb as Freud licks a stripe up his neck with the flat of his entire tongue, it is rough and hot against his flushed skin. ‘I’m not letting you go until you come another time.’

He is making the most piteous sounds, high pitched, and lewd, and strained. He doesn’t even register that he is locking his fingers like claws around Freud’s thighs, or that Freud is purring his satisfaction into his ear, all he wants is for the friction to stop, but through the almost-pain, there is still just the slightest bit of pleasure, and Phantom latches on to it like a dying man.

Freud nibbles on his sensitive earlobe, suckling fiercely, it is one of Phantom’s weak spots and he cannot help but whimper, feeling a trickle of saliva run down his mouth. Freud gently massages the shaft, squeezing daintily around the head and flicking at the opening, and though it takes forever and an eternity to Phantom, a final stroke has Phantom tensing and letting out a weak dribble of precome as he orgasms dry.

His mind has whited out in relief.

Freud releases his mouth. ‘Down on the floor.’

He blinks away the stars and shakily lowers himself down, panting hard, stars in his vision. He doesn’t even know if he’s in the position Freud wants, his limbs are like jelly, and he just wants to curl up wherever he is and fall asleep, he is so wiped.

When the haze clears just a little, the clinking of metal utensils against porcelain makes him lift his head.

His eyes widen as Freud pauses, a piece of pancake halfway to his mouth.

It is covered in white fluid.

‘Want some?’ grins Freud, and Phantom feels his gut twist.

He doesn’t want to believe it, but he knows he will be made to eat food soaking in Freud’s come, too.

‘No?’

He whimpers softly at the realisation, lowering his head, suddenly feeling cold and vulnerable and alone, at the feet of the man he had always thought loved him, naked with shackles around his hands and feet and a golden collar around his neck, trapped in a golden cage. 

‘Oh, love.’

The food forgotten, Freud picks him up easily with his magically-imbued strength, like cradling a puppy in his arms, and carries him over to the bed. Phantom doesn’t know where to put his hands as Freud settles them both down in the plush sheets and lies down beside Phantom.

‘Love, don’t cry.’ Freud whispers into his ear. His heart has been torn so many ways in his short life, and though this new crack hurts him more than any other ever can, Phantom won’t cry, what’s another to add to the list? ‘Just let me take care of you, from now on. Be good for me, won’t you?’

He looks up, recognising the voice of blue-eyed Freud.

‘Freud,’ he whispers.

‘Hush, love.’ Freud whispers back, gently stroking his sore cheek gently with all the tenderness of the past. ‘Just be still.’

Freud pulls Phantom into his embrace. It is all an act, but a damn convincing one, and Phantom so desperately needs to pretend that he is anywhere except in this damned, godforsaken golden cage where his hopes and dreams have died, beaten and trampled into nothing.

Freud’s robes are still as soft and warm as he remembers, perhaps even softer, now. He burrows into the warmth and Freud lets him, tugging the sheets over them with a gentle hum. ‘That’s it, love. It feels so good with you here.’

It does.

Freud runs a hand through his hair, admiring it with a gaze that Phantom finds absolutely mesmerizing. ‘Will you be good for me, love?’

Phantom’s heart stops. He doesn’t know.

‘Please?’

Pain, on one hand.

Love, on the other.

Frustration, anger, tears, betrayal.

Or pleasure. Sweet, mind-numbing pleasure.

Freud angry.

Freud pleased.

Phantom afraid.

Or Phantom taken care of, just as Freud has always said.

Phantom realises that Freud has always kept his word. Blue eyes or red eyes, Freud keeps his word.

And Phantom wants to be treasured.

‘I… I’ll try,’ whispers Phantom in reply, his voice is almost just a stray breath in the silence.

Freud’s blue eyes glimmer, they are moist from tears. ‘That is all I ask, my sweet love.’

He waits for the smell of flowers to descend upon them, but nothing happens. He looks up questioningly at Freud, and almost as if Freud has read his mind, the man smiles gently. ‘Good boys get to choose their own bedtimes.’

Phantom feels something like a twinge of relief. Though a tiny part of him hates this, a bigger part of him wants to savour this a little longer.

They lie entwined like lovers, Freud playing with Phantom’s fingers, and Phantom decides that this is better than being hit, or teased, or not allowed to come.

He lets himself gently curl his fingers around Freud’s.


	6. Chapter 6

Phantom has been screaming for the past eternity.

Though it cannot be more than half an hour.

‘Hold on for me, love.’

He doesn’t have the strength to hold himself up straight. Held up by his wrists, he sags bonelessly against the bedpost with hell on the skin of his back and it is all he can do to keep breathing. Shallow breaths, so he doesn’t move his shoulders too much.

It’ll be great if he stops fucking sweating too. Salt does wonders on an open wound.

He takes a while to remember how to talk. ‘Fuck you,’ he breathes wearily against his shoulder. Fuck, even his jaws hurt to talk, he’s clenched them so hard that his head is pounding.

‘You’re doing great.’ Blue robes come into view and he feels Freud planting kisses along his icy fingers, trembling against the chains holding him fast. There isn’t any use protesting. The world is already spinning as it is, on the verge of blurring, if he moves too suddenly he’s certain he’ll black out.

Instead he presses harder against the metal bedpost, panting against it. If it wasn’t made of metal, he’d have scoured long trenches into the surface with his nails by now. ‘Fuck, you,’ he grits out, voice too shaky to sound angry. He just sounds tired and scared. ‘You and your _fucking_ games.’

‘This isn’t a game to me, love.’ Freud squats down beside him and nibbles on his jawbone. The gentle touch is a world away, a mere speck of sand in the raging sandstorm tearing at his back.

But Freud’s tongue, pressed against the pulsing vein under his flushed skin, he feels all too clearly.

‘This _entire_ thing is a game to you.’ Phantom lets Freud tilt his head for more room, saving his strength for the real fight later on. The fight with Freud’s magic. ‘You can just quickly get it over and done with instead of taking your damn time.’

‘Now, now. You know I need to get every detail perfect, and that takes time and patience.’

‘Time and patience my ass.’

He hisses softly as Freud runs a hand up his thighs and strokes the curve of his bottom.

‘You should really think through what you say before you say it.’

‘Fuck you. That doesn’t need to be considered twice.’

Freud digs his nails into the soft skin of his ass, but the pain is so tame compared to the burn that Phantom has no difficulty biting it down. ‘Besides, I’m almost done.’

‘Don’t patronize me.’

Phantom knows Freud is lying. He knows the dragon insignia anywhere. He can feel the proud arch of the dragon’s coiling body being burned into his skin, and he knows Freud isn’t even halfway done with the main dragon yet. Then there’s still the two others flanking it left to go.

‘I’m not, love.’

‘I fucking said, don’t fucking patronize me.’

‘Mind your language, Phantom.’ Freud nuzzles into the soft skin of his neck and starts raking his teeth along Phantom’s collarbone. His brow furrows slightly against the dull sting, but he doesn’t feel the slightest twinge of remorse.

Instead, Phantom pulls away to grin, as widely and rebelliously as he can manage.

‘Well then. Fuck you and your fucking games, you scheming, possessive, screw-loose, slimy disgrace for a dragon master.’

The words come out firm and mocking. Freud only stares blankly at him in silence for a while longer before his expression changes to one of detached amusement.

‘There are many ways I can break you, love.’ Freud contemplates, flitting his hand over Phantom’s shoulder and inching down, down, towards his back, dangerously close to his singed skin. ‘But I will have the pleasure of dragging it out as long as I can, to see how long you can hold out.’

‘I’ll never bend to the likes of you.’

Phantom knows that Freud will circle his fingers back up before touching the wound, he won’t risk touching the mark, not when he might ruin it.

‘We shall see, love.’ Freud’s eyes glint.

Freud moves out of Phantom’s line of sight before there is a crackle of pain like electricity racing across his entire frame, and he convulses, arching against the bedpost with a cry.

He’s wrong about the mark. So dead wrong. This isn’t the searing burn of magic, but the stinging of a wound, opened even further.

Freud leans over and smiles, lips covered in fresh blood. His eyes snap open as Freud crashes their lips together, his head held roughly in place by Freud’s vice-like grip, and the metallic tang of salty iron invades his senses.

Phantom’s own blood. Phantom snarls, panting, gritting his teeth and denying Freud entrance.

‘I love when you put up a fight,’ Freud whispers, his eyes dark with lust and adrenaline.

Phantom snaps at Freud, straining against the brackets holding his ankles fast to the floor, and Freud only barely manages to pull away.

‘Those teeth of yours are what landed you in this mess, Phantom.’ Freud grins, dusting off his robes and getting up, walking out of Phantom’s field of vision.

That’s right.

Things felt like they were acceptable, at least for a little while. After Freud had forced him against the bars that meal, he ate under the table with his knees spread and his cock leaking between his legs.

If they were considered meals to begin with.

Eating was a waiting game, with Phantom quietly listening to the clink of metal utensils against porcelain as he waited for Freud’s arm to shift and his hand to appear with a chunk of food in his palm. No longer just chicken but sometimes fish, bacon, steak — scraps of human food, tossed out to the household pet. But never enough that he was _full_ , just enough to keep him sated until the next feeding which felt so long away.

Freud would lend him a hand to jerk off with, and then have dessert, to which Phantom would always decline with unmasked revulsion.

Phantom wasn’t sure if he liked this uneasy peace. Lying in bed in Freud’s arms, the tiredness from his orgasms seeping through him, he’d fall asleep to Freud’s scent and gentle breathing, like the days of old. But while he liked not being force fed, and liked not being forced to sleep, it felt wrong to cuddle up to Freud, his _captor!_ and bask in his warmth and comfort.

Yet, how tempting it was. His body remembered blue-eyed Freud’s gentle hold around him as they slept and the caress of those nimble fingers chastely across his skin as they passed in the corridors. And now, it was so damn tempting to simply unravel under these same touches, in this golden cage.

But a part of Phantom hated every moment. A part that wasn’t about to die, and for that he supposed he was thankful.

It was the part that raged when Freud had broken the silence earlier that day and said, ‘They’re all very worried for you, you know.’

His sudden, traceless disappearance must have been a shock for all the heroes. Phantom swallowed his anger, but he couldn’t help his brow from furrowing.

‘They’re all worried. It isn’t like you to vanish without leaving hints as to where you’d gone.’

‘Of course not.’ Phantom hissed. ‘I didn’t _leave_. I was taken.’

Freud continued talking, slight amusement in his voice. ‘Luminous was strangely distraught. He was almost frantic, so much for all the times he called you a pesky thief.’

‘I bothered him, but he was still a friend.’ Phantom looked away.

‘But didn’t you feel lonely with them?’ Freud pulled him closer, touched the golden collar around his neck, played with the locks of his blonde hair curling around his neck. ‘You did come to me in the middle of the night saying how out-of-place you’d felt. In fact I think I did you a favour, bringing you here, away from all their judgments.’

Did Phantom a favour? Phantom laughed bitterly.

Indeed. The past hurt. Phantom _was_ out of place. He _was_ lonely. He _did_ want company and to be accepted as one of them. It was his fear that he would never be seen as anything more than a mere thief.

But to be wrenched from the real world and thrown into this disconnected bubble was something far worse.

‘You’re wrong.’

‘Didn’t you say you felt most at home here with me —’

‘You’re wrong!’ Phantom growled, pulling away from Freud’s arms. The warmth around him suddenly was too hot, too stifling, and he was all ice and frozen in his core.

But Freud grabbed his collar, holding him fast.

‘I am not wrong, Phantom.’ Freud said softly, his lidded eyes dark like a shadow had fallen across his irises, ‘I am never wrong.’

‘You are now!’ Phantom gripped Freud’s hand even as he was pulled closer, back into Freud’s hold. ‘You’re killing me, don’t you see? I can’t be here. I hate every moment I’m here, away from —’

‘Nothing. You miss nothing, except your empty riches and the people who claim to be your friends but aren’t.’

Memories sprung unbidden to his mind, of him going back to the lonely silence of his vault of gold and jewels and upending another handful of priceless treasures into the already-towering pile before sinking into the couch there; memories of him with a fixed smile as he pretended that the words of the snowy warrior, the elven queen, the light mage, did not hurt him in the least.

A bird with magnificent feathers, having no place to land.

With a quick motion, Freud flipped them both over and was pinning Phantom down, Phantom’s wrists held fast above his head. Phantom growled and struggled, hissing and pretending that Freud’s words didn’t even bother him, much less send a skewer through him.

‘I am everything you’ve ever needed. No?’ Freud leaned in, smiling gently as Phantom strained futilely beneath him. ‘Your friend, your lover, your listening ear, your cure for the nightmares that ate you up from the inside.’

Phantom’s eyes widened and he fell still, realisation weighing more heavily on his limbs than Freud’s strength ever could.

‘You planned on taking me from the start,’ he whispered hoarsely, as Freud bent to nuzzle into his shoulder.

‘Once you announced your plans for taking the Skaia. A lone wolf like you, with nothing to his name but rumours, so distrusting and yet so willing to put it all on the line for a woman he loved…’

Phantom shuddered as Freud’s voice melted against his neck, thick and viscous like venom, words that mingled with his thoughts, surely not everything had been a lie from the start, surely not everything had simply _played out_ the way Freud had intended it to, a master impassively watching a game of chess unfold and nudging the pieces his way.

Phantom wasn’t selfish. He believed that he wasn’t. No, he knew he wasn’t. He threw his riches and his fame away for love, once upon a time, upon a balcony shrouded in the dark satin of a starry night. And he had done it a second time, in a musty old study —

Where he had stepped into a web of lies and become ensnared.

‘You pretended to empathise with me?’

Freud picked gently at his earlobe with his teeth. ‘Oh, no. I _did_ empathise with you. Truly I did. Aria was a beautiful woman.’

No. This red-eyed Freud, speaking so flippantly of pain and foul acts like orgasm and denial, was not allowed to utter her name so carelessly.

‘Don’t speak of Aria like you know her.’ Phantom growled.

‘But I did know her.’ Freud pulled away, and his sickening, bloodied eyes met Phantom’s own, and for the first time in his life Phantom felt defiled as those ruby orbs looked through him, _into_ him, reading him to his very core. ‘Perhaps even better than you.’

Phantom felt his fists clench.

That slender form and her gentle smile, the most beautiful gem even compared to the night sky speckled with diamonds, was his. Her love was a finely cut masterpiece, even if it had been drenched in blood, smeared by the rain, covered by soft downy feathers on a rainy night.

That alone was Phantom’s greatest treasure.

His. Not Freud’s. Not _this_ Freud’s.

‘How dare you speak of her like that.’

‘Think of it this way, Phantom.’ Freud purred, his voice rich and soothing, and Phantom was certain that Freud knew something he didn’t, but somehow he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what that was at all. ‘Surely she trusted you enough to share her plans about meeting the Black Mage’s convoy.’

Phantom narrowed his eyes, saying nothing about his frustration when he pleaded with her on her balcony, her face stony and still brave, even though he could see her trepidation.

‘And you definitely tried to convince her otherwise, no? The most important gem of maple world, going to meet the most traitorous man, all alone.’

Had Aria been one of Freud’s chess pieces too? As the queen?

‘What did you do?’ Phantom spat.

Freud laughed. ‘She was so selfless. It was a fault of hers, really, how much she cared about her people.’

Surely she couldn’t have been a rook?

‘What did you do?’ shouted Phantom.

‘I empathised with her, Phantom.’ Freud smiled, a gentle hand running across Phantom’s forehead. He wrenched his face away. ‘Something you couldn’t do in time.’

Gods forbid she had been just a pawn.

Phantom gritted his teeth so hard he feared he might never chew right again. ‘What. Did. You. Do?’

He watched as Freud’s smile grew just the slightest bit more tender, watched as something dangerous flickered to life inside the bloodied pools of Freud’s eyes, and waited in such

‘She and I saw eye to eye on many things.’ Freud smiled. ‘Like peaceful diplomacy, and the need to sacrifice one for many.’

Phantom’s heart stopped.

Freud was the reason Aria was inconsolable about her plans.

Freud was the reason Aria had gone for the meeting.

Freud was the reason Aria —

‘No.’

Freud only leaned close, breath ghosting across Phantom’s throat as he fought to swallow the bile that was coming up. What kind of lies would be have spewed to Aria that night, with the same gentle breath? — his precious, fragile flower, the beloved Aria he had tried so hard to protect — and failed?

‘No, no. No, you’re lying.’

‘I have not lied to you once inside this cage, Phantom. Outside is where the lies are.’

Phantom lets his arms and body go slack in defeat, letting his eyes flutter shut.

Flashes of white, red, sandy yellow, midnight blue, raced across his vision, her motionless body in his arms getting heavier and heavier as rain seeped into her silk dress, the wounds and the bruises and the _blood_ —

Still Freud kept talking though the words were static and for a moment when warmth touched his cheek he was startled and it took a while to remember that he was in the land of the living —

No he wasn’t in the land of the living and especially not in this golden cage or when he was staring into Freud’s eyes crimson ruby red like _the blood he’d saw spilled that night_ —

And it was blood he tasted as he arched forward with a snarl and fastened his teeth around Freud’s lips when he could take no more.

He tugged and snarled and growled like an animal the animal that Freud wanted to reduce him to _he still had his pride and one last weapon and that was his teeth_ and bit harder still when Freud’s hand around his wrists tightened.

The mage had barely time to pull away so Phantom only caught a little bit of lip between his teeth, the corner, but Phantom wasn’t going to let go and _gods damn it to hell_ he wanted to make this man pay for the blood of Aria that had been spilled _for no reason at all_ and he wanted to make this man bleed until he was dry.

When Freud hissed in pain Phantom let go and quickly fastened his teeth around Freud’s neck, but the man was quicker and he only managed to latch onto Freud’s collarbone, biting so ruthlessly he could feel the soft skin tear immediately. He clenched his teeth harder against the bone so the tears wouldn’t even start to gather, hell if Aria would want to see him cry in front of his captor, hell if he was going to let Freud see his tears.

He hung there by his teeth for what seemed like the longest time, when he finally realised that Freud had let go of his wrists and was making no move to pull away.

Blood was pooling in the bowl of his mouth. Freud’s blood. He unclamped his jaws to draw breath and curse but Freud took the chance, he wrapped a hand around Phantom’s throat.

And squeezed.

Phantom immediately choked from the force, instinct driving him to scrabble wildly to try to get air into his lungs.

But nothing.

Freud just watched, impassively, as his flailing got weaker. Phantom found himself twitching soon, spots of darkness appearing in his vision, his blood rushing and pounding as he went lightheaded.

With the last of his strength, he bucked and half-coughed, half-spat the blood and saliva in his mouth at Freud’s face.

Then he fell limp.

The lights seemed to dim,

but it was still clear enough to see Freud lift his other hand to the freely bleeding wound at the corner of his lips and wipe at it with his thumb.

Freud was contemplating,

that much Phantom’s hazy mind could decipher

He didn’t even look angry

Just… nonchalant

and maybe mildly curious and just a slight bit disapproving

An expression that said

_Now, why on earth would you do something like that?_

And Phantom realised as he slipped under

that he w as in tr ou b l e

and then Phantom jerked awake to his haggard screaming as pain laced through his back, no poison, no fire, no weapon, no waking memory could ever compare to the pain on his back —

What happened? The shock of the pain flaring so abruptly and so completely through his being made it hard to breathe, water was in his nose when everything was dry, the air cold and icy and biting into his windpipe —

Freud was there, standing beside the bedpost, smiling like nothing was in the least bit wrong.

Phantom struggled to make his eyes focus, letting Freud tilt his head up with a finger.

‘Good morning, love.’

His neck throbbed, he could feel a heated imprint of a hand where Freud’s fit perfectly.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ he croaked. His voice was gnarled, a dry rasp crawling from his tortured throat.

Freud laughed and patted his cheek.

‘What a rude greeting, love.’

Phantom only managed a weak growl in reply and Freud let his head drop back down to his chest.

‘I thought of all the possibilities.’

He tried to lift his head but found it impossible, it felt so very heavy and was still pounding from blacking out just now. Things weren’t in focus yet. Freud was just a blur, a leering toothy smile in a skin colored patch, and two unmistakably blood-red drops for eyes, framed by hair of dying leaves.

‘It worried me, love. Why were you suddenly so angry — angry enough to attack me? It’s the first time you dared to even lay a hand on me.’

Phantom had attacked Freud? Maybe that was the additional smear of blood still trickling down his cheek.

‘I suppose Aria would always be a sore point, for you.’

It all came back to him in a rush.

Aria, the pawn in Freud’s game.

He struggled to look up and this time succeeded, realising his tongue was still coated with a layer of the remnants of Freud’s blood. Disgusting. He didn’t want any of it touching him. It chilled him to the bone.

‘It’s just like you, you know? To be riled up by a lover you’d thought forgotten.’

‘Aria was very dear to me,’ Phantom gritted out, as clearly as he could. He tried pulling on his hands to support himself but they were held fast to the bedpost, and he couldn’t move his legs either, something was probably holding him down too.

‘Indeed.’ Freud narrowed his eyes at the words, and Phantom couldn’t for the life of him imagine what beef Freud had with the whole thing.

Other than him betraying Phantom, by killing the first person he had ever come to love.

Freud didn’t lose a single thing in the entire exchange.

But up until now, Phantom had lost his heart to two people, gotten it shattered once when the first guardian died, and then when he handed the ruined pieces to Freud to be repaired, everything had been ground to dust right here across the ivory floor.

‘Now, Phantom. I am going to teach you a very simple lesson.’

With every breath, Phantom’s vision sharpened a little more. He realized the corner of Freud’s lip was mauled, a flap hanging from where the flesh was still connected, leaking a bloody trail down his chin. Freud brought his thumb to pat it back into place every so often, wiping away the blood that trickled down.

The bite mark around Freud’s collarbone was visible too, a ring of perforated crimson gashes that had began to crust over with dried blood.

Freud suddenly grabbed a handful of his hair and wrenched his head forward, and he let out a yell as his scalp burned.

Those red eyes were lit with anger, and another kind of emotion, one Phantom would learn as the rage of a jealous lover scorned multiple times over.

‘You are mine.’

Now Freud is going out of Phantom’s vision, picking up his staff and Phantom knows the next bout of pain will hit soon.

He grits his teeth as Freud runs his hand down his shaking frame, learning the rise and fall of his chest as he fights desperately for breath.

‘You look so much better like this, Phantom, when you bearing my mark on your lithe, sinewy back.’

Phantom cranes his head to look at Freud, narrowing his eyes as he snarls, ‘I will never be yours.’

‘Ah, but with this mark, you will be.’ A hand ghosts over the raw skin and Phantom almost convulses, each touch a splinter stabbing through him.

‘F-Fuck…’

‘I never knew you could look any more beautiful, my love. But with your back like that…’ Freud inhales, the sharp hiss of breath speaking of his twisted satisfaction, ‘It will heal like an old scar, opened over and over again, and leave a beautiful ragged, white-hot painting over your perfect skin.’

Phantom can’t help his back from quivering at Freud’s almost sultry voice.

He isn’t expecting the pain when it hits, like carving a knife through his skin in the middle of the saltwater sea, and is clawing desperately at the bedpost for a handhold for anything to hold onto so the pain doesn’t just whip his sanity out of his skull he doesn’t know what he is shouting just wants it to stop please make it stop —

And that is all. The pain flickers out of existence. He sucks in a deep shuddering breath. Inch by inch Freud works, giving him time to recuperate, to lull his body into a false sense of safety, before he aims down his staff with the eagerness of a boy putting brush to paper for the first time, and burns that mark into his skin.

The smell of charring meat fills the air and Phantom wants to throw up.

‘Deep breaths, love.’ Freud is in front of him again, stroking his cheek to soothe him.

He slumps against the bedpost and tries to breathe as Freud holds up his own right hand, the one with the insignia.

The insignia there, three coiling dragons, is what Phantom will have on his back very soon. He hasn’t taken note of it but now he does, it is slightly whitish now rather than brown like a discolouration on his skin, a badly healed wound that hasn’t set well, the skin puckering around the edges and it looks permanently in the middle of being healed.

‘See? Imagine this across your back.’ Freud thumbs his lip absentmindedly, probing the flap back into its place before reaching over and nudging at the mark on his hand. ‘A mark to tell the world you’re mine.’

Phantom lets out a quiet laugh. ‘Will the world… ever see me again… anyway?’

‘No idea.’ Freud grins and turns his attention back to his hand. He points at the biggest dragon, then at each of the smaller ones in turn. ‘Look. One dragon for each of us. Me, Afrien, and you.’

‘You couldn’t possibly have… planned to take me even before we’d met.’ Phantom grimaces openly at Freud’s hand and snorts at it. ‘You’re talking shit.’

Freud laughs and runs his hands through Phantom’s hair, carefully arranging some of the disobedient locks back into place. ‘No, you weren’t ever part of my plans. But when you declared that you were going to steal the Empress’s jewel, the Skaia… I couldn’t resist picking up a challenge of my own.’

To think this sick, perverse game of Freud’s had begun long before Phantom had even learned of his existence.

‘A challenge?’ Phantom sneers, ‘A challenge to what?’

Freud smiles at him. He watches Freud lick his lips and wince slightly as his tongue probes at the ruined skin on the corner of his mouth.

‘To catch the Master Thief.’ Freud tenderly thumbs his wound. ‘Body, mind, and heart.’

Body, mind, and heart? Phantom almost scoffs at the absurdity of it all. It _is_ like a game to Freud, to see how far he can push his limits — and now Freud has set his sights on the freedom of another man, and that man is Phantom.

He hates to admit it, but inside this golden cage where magic is hampered and he cannot even see in the darkness like he usually can, he is trapped. He has been trapped ever since he landed on Freud’s windowsill, falling in love with the fake version of him, with thoughts of Freud and care and concern and wonder filling him.

With a sickening jolt to his gut, he realises that there is more.

His sleeping schedules and eating schedules have been reprogrammed by Freud’s careful calculation, destroying the human timetable of three meals a day. Hell, Freud has rewired his mind, twisting hunger with arousal, and Phantom doubts he will ever be able to discern the two again. And with that damned mark across his back, Freud has literally stamped his name on Phantom, a brand to mark Phantom as _his_.

Freud, with his elaborate orchestrated ruse, has proven that even with make believe is enough to ensnare a Master Thief.

And in this cage, which is a world in itself and separate from time and space, all Phantom has is Freud.

Phantom chuckles. The sound is bitter and hollow. ‘Body, mind, and heart, huh? Well you’ll never get my heart ever again.’

‘Oh, but I will.’ Freud’s eyes soften, his smile growing longer. ‘I have expected your rebellion, though not as furious as this. Of course, I have a plan to deal with it.’

‘Take your plans and shove them up your ass.’ Phantom spits. ‘Bet you didn’t plan to have to deal with me biting your face off.’

Freud laughs and Phantom sees his hand twitch as he resists the urge to touch his open wound once more. ‘Most definitely not. But I will make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

‘Ah. Pray tell how.’

Freud digs his nails into Phantom’s cheek and brings them face to face, so close that Freud’s breath is drawing over his skin.

There is something dark and carnal unfurling the depths of his eyes, a slowly waking behemoth only just beginning to show its true form.

‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

Phantom inhales sharply when Freud lets go and that sickening yet enrapturing gaze is broken. He realises only now that he has been holding his breath and his heart is throbbing so hard his ribcage feels fit to shatter.

He hears Freud pick up his staff, and closes his eyes.

 _Even if I am in a cage,_ he whispers under his breath, _I belong to nobody_ _._

When he feels his heart flutter inside his chest he knows it is a lie.

Because how can someone _unlove_ a person after drowning in his oceans?

A bird is trapped within his bones, and Phantom doesn’t know how to let it go.


	7. Chapter 7

The sound of footsteps work their way into Phantom’s slumber. Freud. With effort, he opens his eyes to stare blearily at the red-eyed man standing before him.

His staff is clutched lightly in his hand.

Oh, not again.

“How’s my love feeling?”

He really hates how lighthearted the mage can sound, even despite the perverse satisfaction in his eyes and a smirk tilting up the corner of his lips.

“Better than before I blacked out from the pain, thank you for your consideration. Though I cannot help but notice that I’m in for another round of it.”

“Sorry. But it’s necessary to make sure the scar stays visible.” Freud sits beside him, the bed shifting under his weight. Phantom resists the urge to lean into the fingers slipping into his hair, though he does let his eyes close from the soothing touch.

“Ah, yes. To fuel your sick desires and the possessive streak that you managed to hide from everyone.”

Freud huffs. “That’s not a very nice thing to say. Although you have to give me some credit for hiding it so well.”

“Under the guise of a spirit pact, no less. Cunning, dragon master.” Phantom grunts. Gods, he’s sore all over and the pain seems to have lasted for days. Slipping in and out of consciousness doesn’t help with his telling the time, not as if he was able to in the first place. But it feels like he has been chained spreadeagled to the bedposts on his chest for an eternity.

Freud pulls out a jar of salve from under the bed and Phantom eyes it warily. The innocent-looking bluish gel feels great, it numbs the residual pain on his back, but it doesn’t dry like normal salves.

“In my defense, it _is_ the original insignia of the spirit pact. I just decided to be a little more liberal with the size of it. Now hold still while I rub your back.”

Phantom rolls his eyes as Freud coats his palms generously with the translucent gel and gets up. “Not like I can do anything else, can I? Fucker.”

“So foul-mouthed ever since I printed the mark on your back, love. We’ll really have to do something about that.”

Electricity tears through Phantom’s back like lightning, stemming from the finger that Freud has pressed to his back. He can’t help but cry out, tears coming to his eyes and trickling down faster than he can blink them back.

“F-Fuck!”

Freud releases him and he slumps back on the bed, panting hard. He takes a deep shuddering breath, realising that his entire body is quaking in a silent plea for mercy.

“Hold still, I said.”

Phantom bites on his lip, swallowing his anger and helplessness with difficulty but obliges. Cold sweat has broken out over his forehead and his heart is pounding. And as it is, there are faint spots on the periphery of his vision.

“Your back is bruised on the inside from all my magic, Phantom. It won’t do you good if you keep resisting me.”

A pleasant coolness spreads across his skin. Phantom relaxes immediately, not conscious of the sigh of relief that escapes his lips.

“How many times are you going to put that salve on my back?” he asks instead, craning his neck so he can just see Freud working the gel into his skin from the corner of his eyes. “You know how much it hurts when you peel it off.”

Freud meets his gaze for a brief moment. Deepest crimson glints at him, backlit by dark, twisted longing. Again, Freud tongues the black scab on the side of his mouth, as if only barely resisting the urge to run his tongue over his lips.

What will Freud do to him once his back heals?

“As many times as it needs to leave a permanent scar. See, it has chemicals to disrupt healing, and since it dries hard, peeling it takes the scabs off.”

The clinical, matter-of-fact answer chills him to his core. Words desert him. Not even the most vile of insults come to mind.

“Don’t look so shocked, love.” Freud laughs and then looks fondly down at his handiwork. “No pain, no gain.”

Phantom turns his head forward again, suddenly finding it sickening to be the object of this man’s fancies and deepest desires. He lets out a groan of half frustration, half dread as Freud reaches over for his staff. Light touches of Freud’s magic run down his back, like softest silk ribbons across his skin.

“It’ll only take a minute. Just close your eyes and it’ll be over before you know it.” The gel is starting to turn hard as Freud speaks, Phantom can feel it pulling at his skin and tightening there.

“Oh, if only closing my eyes could stop the pain.”

He squeezes his eyes shut anyway, gripping the sheets in his clammy fingers and clenched teeth. Freud cups his cheek gently with his clean hand, but Phantom doesn’t pay heed to it. The mage can easily dull the pain with more of his neverending concoctions. He just enjoys seeing Phantom writhing in agony.

“Do it for me, alright?”

There is unmistakable tenderness in Freud’s voice. Phantom’s knuckles tighten even more around the sheets.

“Just get it over and done wi—”

And he _screams_ , his back is torn into two as Freud just rips the entire cake of dried salve from his skin. The pain is blinding and overwhelming and Phantom is arched as fiercely as he can go, chafing his ankles and wrists on his metal cuffs in his sudden spasm as pain shocks his entire body.

But thank gods, it is agony but it is quick, mercifully quick. Phantom regains his senses only seconds after the fire has receded, which is an improvement from the previous time, though just like before his cheek is pressed against a patch of the bedsheet damp from his tears.

He catches himself just before another pitiful sound escapes his lips. He was whimpering. Gods damn it all. Freud must have enjoyed it again, this time.

“Look, love.”

Phantom doesn’t move and doesn’t open his eyes.

“Love?”

Freud digs his fingernails into his cheeks and wrenches his face to the side. The pain is so mild that Phantom doesn’t even wince. But if Freud prods his back when the scabs just got pulled off…

Phantom cracks his eyes open, blinking away tears. And then his gut churns.

Blue-eyed Freud is grinning, his gaze innocent as a child’s, all eagerness and joy. And clutched in his hand is the translucent gel, a hardened mass like rolled out dough, with scabs sticking to one surface in the shape of a coiling dragon.

“Very nice,” hisses Phantom curtly. He turns his head as soon as Freud lets go. His back is just one patch of wildfire. “Did the previous two times give you a nice artwork like that too?”

“They weren’t as clear. Too much blood.” Freud lays the dried mass carefully on the table and turns to him with a sigh.

“Make sure I don’t faint from blood loss. You wouldn’t like that to happen to your precious love, would you.”

“Oh, of course not.” 

Phantom drops his head back to the bed with relief, his sore muscles protesting even that slight movement. It feels like he has been run over multiple times. It could’ve been lesser if Freud hadn’t put the salve on him, the sick fuck.

“Are you feeling alright, love?”

“Take your piece of art and your concern and go away.”

Freud comes around to the side. With difficulty, Phantom reminds himself that this Freud, all concern and worry for his circumstance, is the one who just tore the healing skin off his wounds. And enjoyed every moment of it.

He swallows a knot in his throat as Freud cards his fingers through his hair with a dejected sigh. “Oh, love. You really wouldn’t have had to go through all this pain if you hadn’t resisted me earlier.”

Like hell he wouldn’t. Freud would have found some other way to feed his addiction regardless. It will be a lot more direct for Phantom if Freud just goes at Phantom with a little scalpel and takes off all his skin. Phantom bites back a growl and replaces it with a soft hum instead.

Well, Freud’s fault he had to toy with the late Empress. “Sorry,” Phantom says, as nonchalantly as he can, “Aria was, is, and will still be, a trigger for me.”

Freud’s gaze shifts. Where there used to be a calm and gently flowing river of blood, there is anger, hot and searing like magma.

“I’ll have to rectify that, apparently.” Freud gets up, the blood in his eyes turning darker, his stride lengthening as he makes for his staff.

And Phantom, after too long a time, finally realises the error of his ways.

“No, no no!” Phantom tries his best to crane his head around. He has to sound genuine, like he’s scared — but it isn’t hard to pretend that. “I… I didn’t mean that!”

“Sure.”

Phantom hears the _clunk_ of Freud’s staff against the table. He’s picking it up. “I take it back.” Stammer, Phantom, stammer. “W-w-would you allow m-me to take it back?”

Freud grips his hair tightly, yanking his head backwards so hard he sees stars. And his eyes widen in real terror as Freud regards him coldly.

The monster in the depths of his eyes is uncoiling, scales like drops of blood reflecting the light. Freud’s eyes are narrowed, his gaze hard, his mouth pressed into a thin line, as if he is trying to hold back his already-obvious anger.

Mentally, Phantom kicks himself hard. He should’ve known. Freud is the jealous type, irrationally so, and Phantom should’ve known better than to provoke hm by mentioning anyone else.

Has Freud always been this possessive about who Phantom gave his heart to?

From the corner of his eyes he sees Freud’s knuckles tighten around his staff as he says, gently, “What if I won’t let you take it back?”

Another yank on his hair. Phantom gasps as the golden collar around his neck digs into his skin. It’s… sharp, another pull and it will draw blood for sure. His heart pounds as he chokes out, as best as he can while his throat is pulled taut, “I’m sorry!”

“No. You’re not.”

Now, Phantom is.

“I am, gods Freud, I swear I am! I’ll show you. Please. Let me show you.”

Freud’s eyes stay hard as the corner of his lips start to curl in disdain, showing stark white teeth. Freud is waiting for Phantom to convince him. But he doesn’t have much time.

His mind races. A _sorry_ definitely doesn’t cut it. All three dragons are already embossed into his skin, there isn’t place for a fourth one. And he really can’t take any more pain “I’ll… I’ll…”

“Yes?” Freud’s reply is a gentle, teasing breath eased through his teeth.

What will make Freud happy?

“I’ll be good.”

“I’ve expected that from the start.”

“I won’t ever throw up again.”

“We already established that.”

An idea hits him, though it makes him ache to even think it.

Another hesitant glance at Freud, who still wears that contemptuous half-snarl that will surely grow if Phantom doesn’t play his cards right, and Phantom decides that anything is better than facing Freud’s wrath.

“Let your captive pleasure you, Master.”

Freud’s eyes widen in surprise before a pleasant glaze coats them. “Oh?”

It’s working. Thank fuck.

“Master has been very generous with awarding pleasure. Let your captive repay the favour. Sir.” Phantom adds after the slightest bit of hesitation. He lets his words slur as they do when he’s aroused, a sultry buttery overcoat that still makes Freud’s eyes flash, as they did so long ago.

“Why the change of tune so suddenly, love? Must I make you feel pain before you will be nice to me?”

Freud sets his weapon down across Phantom’s thighs. Phantom schools his expression carefully as the man strokes his cheek tenderly with his other hand. Those deep garnet eyes bore into his, studying him intently, as if to find even the slightest trace of pretense so he can punish Phantom for it.

 _Because I’m afraid of you_ will suffice, but he won’t admit it.

 _Because I want to_ is a lie.

 _Because I love you_ feels like a lie, though he finds a part of him that still longs to say it and mean every word.

“No… I don’t want you to be angry at me.” Phantom gasps. His voice goes hoarse as Freud’s grip tightens further in his hair when he hesitates, and he can’t help but wince. “Please.”

Freud contemplates, his sinister gaze roving down Phantom’s frame, as if deciding which part to sink his teeth into. Phantom feels vulnerable, more exposed, even though he’s already naked. He hates the way Freud’s eyes lay him bare.

“Convince me to let you suck my cock.”

Phantom has steeled himself to the idea of pleasure, but hearing it from the man makes the act sound almost vile.

Almost as if Freud has predicted his hesitation, the man reaches for the staff again. Immediately Phantom obliges Freud’s command and blurts out, “No, I… Let me pleasure you, sir.”

Freud stills, his hand dropping to Phantom’s ass. He shivers as the fingers drum gently on his cheek.

“Go on,” probes Freud.

“Let me swallow your length. And drink up all your come.” Phantom swallows hard, his throat going dry. Freud watches his throat bob with interest. “All of it. Every precious drop you’re willing to give your captive, sir.”

Freud’s expression doesn’t change. “Try harder.”

“I… I’ll kneel between your legs. Like a good dog.” Phantom’s mind races, trying to recall everything he has learned about this violent man who rules over his body by tapping into his sexual desires. “I won’t use my hands. I’ll kiss your cock like you kissed me, fierce and passionate. And I’ll mean it.”

Still Freud’s expression stays blank. Phantom realises he cannot possibly win a scholar — a lover of literature — over with words.

But he has to keep trying. Because Freud will serve him pain on a golden platter if he doesn’t, and because he wants to escape it. Gods, he really does. His heart is pounding harder, and sweat is running down the side of his face. Please, please let this jealous Freud have mercy.

“Please, Master. I want to… I want to bury my face on your cock. I want you to hold me down so long until I choke.”

Transcendents. His face is burning now, how can he bear to say such terrible things to the man who isn’t the man he used to love?

“I want you to spill your load into my throat. And…”

It’s all a lie, all lies, just lies.

“And fuck my mouth. So hard. Until I can’t talk right.”

And he catches the faintest of inhalations from the man. It’s a gentle breath to calm himself, because Freud’s eyes are going glassy. It’s working. Thank all the gods.

But Freud isn’t letting go of his hair yet.

“Do go on,” prompts Freud again, voice low, dangerous, wanting.

Freud is waiting for something. Phantom thinks back to what had gotten him into this mess, past the fear, past the violence — and his heart sinks.

He should not have spurned this jealous man.

Phantom feels helplessness well up at the back of his throat and closes his eyes. The words are ash, thick and flaky, on his lips.

“Please teach your captive what happens when he mentions any other name but yours, Master.”

Freud’s grip lessens in his hair. Phantom draws a shuddering breath as the hand runs down the side of his face, cupping his cheek, tilting his chin up with one curled finger.

“It’s going to hurt, love.” Freud murmurs. Phantom opens his eyes when Freud says nothing more, and the man regards him with a mix of pity and concern, as if it isn’t his fault that Phantom is going to have to choke on his cock, later. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Master.” Phantom whispers, hating the way Freud frowns disapprovingly, as if Phantom’s plan is not one he endorses, “Please erase _her_ name from my throat.”

And that satisfies Freud at last. The chains dematerialise and Freud steps away. “Good.” He taps Phantom’s cheek. “Get to it, love. I’m looking forward.”

Phantom shifts and gets onto fours and the slight movement tears again at his ruined muscles. Every time he moves his arms and legs he pulls at a muscle along his back, and before he has even slid off the bed, his torso is on fire all over again.

“Don’t dawdle, love.”

He glances at Freud through his fringe to check the man’s temperament. Freud is watching him with detached curiosity, like he’s an interesting animal, what with all the sounds of strain he’s making. Phantom bites back another groan and gets on the floor properly, spreading his legs like Freud likes him to.

Freud’s gaze darkens, the slightest hints of a smirk tugging at his lips. The look that Freud wears when he’s plotting. Whatever it is, Phantom doesn’t want it. Just for now, because Freud ruffled and on edge, and because Phantom has only just escaped a new world of pain, it’s better to err on the side of caution.

He pretends that his pride doesn’t matter and that humiliation doesn’t trip his guts, and as he makes his way over to Freud, he keeps his body low to the ground and his eyes downcast, a chastised dog who know’s he’s done wrong. (If Phantom had a tail he’d even be curling it between his legs. He doesn’t know any way to make it any clearer than it is.) He settles in front of Freud’s boots, dark blue instead of red, and keeps his gaze fixed there.

Freud lets out a hum of pleasant surprise. “Good job, love. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Phantom grits out, as Freud sits on the edge of the bed and spreads his legs.

The man pulls up his robes, revealing his jeans, and pats his inner thigh. “Come on, love.”

A blowjob one day, a fucking the next. Phantom knows it.

But he crawls over to Freud’s legs anyway. Freud’s smile is painfully familiar, the expression of Freud’s when he knows he’s getting some and overjoyed about it. Except that all traces of blue are gone. What’s new?

“Can I unzip your pants, sir?”

“How polite.” Freud leans back on his arms, clearly enjoying it. “Please do. But don’t use your hands.”

What kind of request is that? Not to use his hands? If not his hands, then what? His — _oh_. Phantom’s stomach twists. “Yes, sir.”

He edges forward, baring his teeth, aiming for the little button of metal at the waistline of Freud’s pants and trying not to touch anything else. Goosebumps break out over his skin. It makes him sick, not that he wants to puke.

Freud’s hand snakes roughly into his hair and all but wrenches him forward, forcing his nose into the man’s sex. Phantom grimaces, resisting the overwhelming urge to fight back, and just lets Freud press his nose against his groin. Freud’s scent, familiar and sweetly tinged with the hints of his arousal, still go to Phantom’s groin.

“I thought you said you’d mean it when you kissed my cock?” Freud purrs, and punctuates his sentence with a slight thrust of his crotch against Phantom’s face. “How are you going to do that if you’re so stingy with body contact, hmm?”

“I was… thinking, sir,” Phantom gasps as Freud bunches his hair ruthlessly in his fingers and pulls roughly at his scalp. “Only thinking. The button. It’s hard to undo. Sir.”

“You’d best get to it then.” Freud pulls him higher, and then guides him to the button, closing his legs and rubbing the inner side of his thigh against Phantom’s cheek. “Here.”

Phantom struggles, gritting back the pain as he fights to free the metal button from the stiff denim. Freud merely watches, chuckling every once in a while. After the edge of the denim is wet from Phantom’s saliva, the button is undone.

“The zipper.”

Freud lets go of his hair and Phantom inhales sharply. He’s about to bring his hands to his head to rub, when he catches sight of Freud’s eyes, narrowed in clear warning. He averts his eyes, lowers his hands, and starts tugging the zipper down.

“There we go.” The metal teeth part to reveal a bulge in Freud’s briefs. Phantom realises he still remembers its shape in his mouth and the way it throbs on his tongue. Freud slips his briefs low enough to reveal his member, which stands out clearly from his crotch, already hard.

Just get this over and done with. Just for today, his shame doesn’t matter. He’ll just be a good cocksucker for Freud and then get the man out of here.

He leans in, nuzzling into the wiry hairs of Freud’s crotch and planting a long kiss there in-between laps of his tongue. Freud smells the same, so sickeningly sweet, addictive, the smell he’d associated with his deepest and darkest pleasures. He starts licking at Freud’s sac, suckling and raking his teeth over the creases just under the shaft, the spot that will force a sure tremor to run down Freud’s frame.

Phantom focuses there, cupping Freud’s shaft with one hand and pressing his face against it as he works, coating the spot with his saliva. And finally, Freud shivers, sliding his hands into Phantom’s hair.

“Phantom,” breathes Freud. A glance upwards reveals his crimson eyes going lidded, glazing over further.

Good. Phantom kisses the spot wetly before licking a wide, flat stripe up Freud’s shaft. Freud’s gentle exhalation almost pulls him into the reveries of days of old, when he woke Freud up in ways such as these, with the man’s morning wood in his mouth and helping himself to breakfast early. But now Phantom quashes these bittersweet memories and teases the underside of the bulbous head with dainty licks.

“Gods, how I love your clever tongue.” Freud’s words are still level, but Phantom recognises the slight quiver that only arousal brings. He meets Freud’s eyes, making sure Freud’s watching as he picks up the bead of clear precome on the tip of his tongue and makes a show of swallowing it. The taste of Freud’s precome is even better than he has remembered.

He realises he actually misses it.

Freud’s hand tightens in his hair. Phantom shivers, knowing what’s soon to come, but he still keeps moving gamely. Phantom sucks harder, taking Freud to the back of his mouth and hollowing out his cheeks, sucking so expertly that he pulls a moan from Freud as well. Phantom wants to stroke himself in time to his own ministrations, his cock is swelling to full mast as he bobs up and down, but he resists the urge, instead rolling Freud’s sac between his fingers.

Just as he pulls up, Freud wrenches his head forward and he grunts as he is forced to take Freud’s entire length. It jabs roughly at his throat, making him gag. Tears come to his eyes but Freud holds him there as he struggles.

“Come on, love. Swallow.”

Phantom feels his head pulled off and only has time for a gasping breath before his mouth is full of cock again. But this time he manages to force his throat to work and Freud slides all the way in. Phantom swallows furiously, feeling tears spill over his eyes as Freud fastens his other hand into his hair too. The man groans, lost in pleasure, seeming to forget that Phantom is there, with his air fast running out and needing to breathe.

Phantom struggles, instinctively pushing against the bed with his hands, desperate to pull away for a breath of air. But still he stays lodged there as the last of his air runs out and the world starts to blur.

Then he is wrenched off Freud’s cock, gasping haggardly for air. He coughs, his throat constricting faster than he is used to. Freud’s teeth are peeking out between slightly parted lips.

“Now, to teach you your lesson.”

Phantom only realises the shackles of his wrists are connected to his ankles when he tries to push Freud off but can’t. He grunts desperately as Freud grips his head, edging closer to the bed and starting to thrust earnestly into his mouth. The hardened mass forces his throat to part over and over, coating his mouth with precome.

“Never ever _ever_ mention her name while you are here. She is long gone, and you are mine. All mine, forever and ever. Mine to do with as I please, mine to love, mine to treasure and protect, until time runs dry.”

Phantom finally remembers to work his throat, which has gone dry, swallowing whenever Freud plunges into his mouth and gasping great lungfuls of air when Freud pulls out. The man’s rhythm gets faster, more erratic.

“The only name I want you speaking of your own accord is _mine_. Because I am the only one who has truly loved you from the start and am willing to keep you, no matter what you may do. Whether you’ve been good or naughty, whether you love me back or not.”

Freud’s voice trembles, shaken by his pleasure. Phantom lets his eyes slide shut as Freud continues talking, as Freud makes Phantom nothing but a mouth for him to fuck.

He’s pulled from Freud’s shaft and his head forced upwards to meet Freud’s hot, terrifyingly scorching crimson gaze.

“Do you understand me, love?”

“I do,” croaks Phantom.

Freud’s smile widens as he releases one hand from Phantom’s hair. Freud wraps his hand around his own shaft and starts stroking furiously. Phantom is itching to move as he watches the sight of Freud stroking himself to completion. Freud’s eyes are lidded and blown out and more black than red.

“All mine,” the mage whispers, voice no more than a gasp in the throes of orgasm.

“So eager for me, sir?”

Phantom can’t help the quip, and it’s out before he realises it. Freud’s gaze settles on him.

“You’re so beautiful, love,” the mage whispers, eyes now so blue and so deep that Phantom forgets to breathe, as if an ocean had just surged around him and cut off his air.

He remembers when he used to ask this Freud the same question — _So eager for me, Freud?_ And Freud would always reply with the same words — _You’re so beautiful, love._

Hot come coats his cheek, his lips, his open mouth, his outstretched tongue. Freud lets out a sated sigh as he comes down from the high of his orgasm, breathing hard, gaze gentle as he reaches forward, cradling Phantom’s cheek in his palm.

With his other hand, he picks up the stray ropes of seed on his fingers, delicately wiping them off, his movement tender and caring. Phantom only realises that he swallowed the come in his mouth when Freud offers his fingers.

He meets Freud’s gaze, those bottomless ocean currents a better prize than he can ever hope to receive as he opens his mouth to take his fingers, sucking and licking around them to clean every drop of Freud’s come. It still tastes the same, bittersweet, and very much Freud.

“What did you learn today, love?” his Freud asks him, gently, and Phantom is so mesmerized by the glittering waves of the sea in Freud’s eyes that he almost forgets to reply.

“The only name I know is yours,” he murmurs, unsure of what to say and whether his words will suffice.

But Freud’s gaze softens as he speaks, his hand brushing tenderly across his cheek, and Phantom realises he can’t be wrong.

“And… and that you love me. And you want to treasure me.”

He doesn’t know if he believes them. But when Freud nods, he realises that it’s not as difficult as he would imagine. There is something grand, something majestic lurking in those ocean depths, big enough to swallow him whole.

“I will _always_ love you, even if nobody else does, as I have from the very beginning,” Freud says, bending down to plant a kiss in Phantom’s hair.

Phantom lets his eyes slide shut, breathing in Freud’s scent, his heat, revelling in the man’s presence.

An ache takes him by surprise and his chest is constricting, squeezing out the last of the breath in his lungs.

Phantom wants Freud. He has never needed anything until he met A— until he… until he met that woman. And when she died he wasn’t sure he could ever love again, but he fell in love with Freud.

And now Freud was making promises so great Phantom didn’t know if he could trust him, though he so desperately, desperately wanted to.

“What’s wrong, love?” Freud tilts his chin up, his gaze with fiery, sunset hues reflected in glittering waves.

“I don’t know,” Phantom says. His voice is strained and cracked. “I always said I loved you… I loved her—” Freud’s eyes turn strange but he doesn’t quite register why, “— I promised her the moon.”

“Love —”

“And then you.” Phantom grinds his teeth. “I wanted to fix things, I promised myself that I would steal every single star for you. I would give you jewels with colors more beautiful than the skies. I would treasure you.”

He faintly registers the muted hum of magic wrapping around his back before he’s pressed back against the bed, his fingers twined with Freud’s, and the man is nuzzling into his neck, dropping kisses along the vein there.

“Oh Phantom,” Freud breathes. Phantom realises his eyes are watery, and that somehow he is afraid that Freud will latch his teeth onto his skin and pull so hard that he bleeds. “You’re afraid that I won’t keep my promise to you?”

Phantom swallows the sound that makes its way up his throat. It isn’t fair, how can Freud still understand him this well? Even now, when Freud’s lips are pressed against his and all he can see is beautiful, iridescent garnet, Freud knows to run his hands down Phantom’s back and press him close and make him feel like Freud is the only thing that anchors him to this world.

“I will always be here,” Freud murmurs against his lips. Phantom gasps as Freud grinds against him. Arousal starts to pool in his loins. “I will make sure nobody can take you away from me. Do you trust me, Phantom?”

Freud’s hand slips around his length and he bucks up into it with a strained whimper as Freud coaxes his half-erection back to full mast once more. “Yes, Freud,” he whispers, letting out a shaky groan when Freud starts to move faster and faster, gripping tighter and tighter so tears come to his eyes.

“We will always be together. I won’t ever leave you, Phantom.” Freud suckles on his lips and Phantom feels his mind start to blur, his breaths coming harder. Freud’s touch, so familiar now, easily pushes him to the brink and soon he is limp and just craving his release. “Not even _she_ could keep that promise, could she, love?”

Freud twists his nipple sharply when he doesn’t reply, nails digging into the over sensitive nub and Phantom howls.

“N-No!”

“No what?”

“No she didn’t! She didn’t, she didn’t —”

“That’s right, love. She lied to you. She couldn’t give you what you needed. Which is why you must _never_ bring her up again.” Freud releases him and Phantom writhes, mouth widening as he pants desperately for breath past the overwhelming urge to groan and groan and not stop.

“N-Never…”

“Good. Oh, how I love you, Phantom. So much, more than you’ll ever know.”

Freud’s smile widens and Phantom gives in, mind numb to everything else except the up and down stroke of Freud’s callused hand.

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me, love?”

This velvety, honeyed voice is the one in his sweetest dreams of late. When he cracks open his eyes and sees the man’s beautiful face and soft brown hair and mesmerizing eyes of purest scarlet, Phantom realises that yes, there is something he wants to tell this man.

“I love you, Freud.”

Freud’s smile softens.

There’s a part of him that protests, but it’s drowned in a tide of overwhelming bliss as he comes over Freud’s hand.

For those few seconds Phantom is not trapped by golden bars, but is soaring, cresting over clouds the same color as a dragon master’s velvet robes.

And Phantom is free.


End file.
